The Joplin Toad is an independently run online magazine, released quarterly and centered around the city of Joplin Missouri.
We’re out to create a new kind of community based publication, providing Joplincentric entertainment in the form of top-notch interviews, journalism, history, humor pieces, art, photography, reviews, and other forms of quirky and creative collaboration. We hope you enjoy issue 1.
Start scrolling to take it all in!
Click the photo to view this amazing portrait in all it’s glory. Shot by John Laude with his Minolta XD-11.
As I sat down for this interview I intended to ask him a list of questions, but I soon realized that he was ready to run with the stories of his life, so I let him run. This interview is slightly different, it’s more of a narrative of a man who we love, and I hope you enjoy reading some of these stories as much as I did hearing them.
Ladies and gentlemen, “Tom Jones”
I kinda collect stories. I once had a newspaper route, did that morning and evening, and I worked for the western union delivering telegrams for oh, another year or two. See then the war came along, World War II, in the 1940s. I got a job working at a machine shop, and I worked there for several years. When I first started working there it was mostly just clean up work, working on brake shoes, and this and that. They had some courses in the machine shop for blacksmithing and welding, well I took a course of blacksmithing, it was really elementary and of course that is kind of a bygone art now.
I had a friend who moved to California…
Welcome to The Joplin Toad’s first semi-official ToadCast. Our first artist interview is with Joplin painter, bottle-cap muralist, hairdresser, sculptor and neighborhood improver, Eric Haun.
Many folks know Eric’s brother Jeremy, renowned comic book artist who is also a Joplin resident, but not everyone knows Eric. We’re about to change that by letting you listen in here. Find out what got Eric started, why he does what he does, how he got over 5,000 bottle caps from local business owners, and how it ties into the bigger picture of contributing to local culture.
The first few minutes of this interview were, for the sake of ambience, recorded in the alley where some of Eric’s work currently resides. You can even hear the chimes that Eric hung there, as mentioned in our group interview with the artist alley contributors.
With ambience, comes wind- so pardon the disruptions of wind, background noise, and mic distortions for the first portion of our time.
want to follow Eric and see more of his work? Find him on instagram: @erichaun.
Each issue, we like to feature a handful of random things we’ve found that we like about Joplin. Sometimes it’s the quirky little things that make a community great, and here’s where we celebrate them.
Originally created as part of Frosted Cakerie’s “Bob Ross day,” this community art canvas was set up on an easel to be worked on by customers as they ate their happy little tree cookies. It got a lot fuller during March’s downtown third thursday event. The canvas was the brainchild of local potter and Frosted employee Autumn, who wanted to invite Joplin residents to contribute to a piece of artwork together depicting their favorite things about Joplin.
It’s all pretty sweet.
photo by Mark N photography
You out of towners may not be familiar with the bruncheonette, but let’s just say if an angel descended upon the earth and became a breakfast restaurant, that angel would be called the bruncheonette. Bigger cities can’t even top those bennies (that’s eggs Benedict for you less versed in the lingo of breakfastery) and the specials are named in a way that remind us of a certain cartoon character.
Here’s a few of our favorite specials, collected here for you to enjoy.
more? yes yes, there’s more.
We’re out of room here, but you can follow the bruncheonette on instagram or facebook for your own steady updates.
Have you ever been alone somewhere when you felt that tingling sensation on the back of your neck? Or ever seen a shadow in the corner of your eye but when you looked nothing was there?
Do you get a creepy feeling when you hear the wind howling through the window or a door creaking open? Most of us have probably experienced something that has given us an uneasy feeling and even if it could be explained away rationally, there is a little part of us that still wonders, “What if..?”
This is especially true for some employees of the old Joplin Library. Books falling off shelves, the sound of footsteps pacing but no one around to make the sound, breathing on the neck of the lone librarian
restocking the shelves at night, shadow figures ducking behind shelves and walking the halls when the doors were locked for the weekend. Could it be overactive imaginations? Or was the building truly haunted?
Haunted Librarians
As librarian Danya Walker described,
”I worked at the Joplin Public Library on Main Street for over 10 years. Over the years, it was accepted by many staff that the building was haunted or at least had unexplained activity. I, myself, did experience some odd things at the library. Many times, when out in the stacks, shelving books, I would feel someone standing behind me or walking up towards me, but there would never be anyone there. That was a very common experience shared by other people/staff as well. I have also heard books fall off the shelf but thenthere aren’t any books knocked off.”
My great great great grandfather crossed the Atlantic on a freighter made almost entirely of wood. Back then, they basically had indentured servants shoveling coal 14 hours a day to keep the thing running. They shoveled into the giant steam engines that slowly moved the giant sloth, like an enormous floating casket across the most dangerous oceans on the earth. The promise of a better life in America held just enough sway over the grueling labor and almost certain death. My great great grandpa almost certainly laughed in the face of good sense when he signed up to board one of those death traps- simply so he could set up a humble makeshift wooden stand.
He fashioned it out of broken oars and shattered dreams and pieces of the only life raft on board, and glued it together with a paste he made from whale blubber and tears. He did it to fill a need; concessions. Those guys working in the coal pits got hungry. You don’t question the meats that come off of makeshift wooden stands when you’re that hungry. He cultivated a sense of demand. And so began my lineage.
His son sold concessions to civil war soldiers.
His sons’ son sold snacks and treats during both great wars.
My name is Clark. I am a concessioner. Like my father and his father before him. I’m going to tell you how I changed baseball forever.
In our “why Joplin” editorial, we talk about the amount of sheer talent hidden within creatives of the city. Music is no exception, a realization made all the more startling when you actually put these recording acts together in one playlist.
Some of these guys still live in Joplin and regularly invest in the community in other ways- Luke from Me Like Bees is also co-owner of “Frosted Cakerie” with his wife Kristen, for instance, and sometimes you can even spot him helping out for a shift at other nearby downtown businesses.
Some of these folks are well known elsewhere but under the radar to most Joplin residents, like echorobot- who has scored electronic music for such projects as the H3h3 youtube series (which has over 6 million followers).
We found a surprise or two, like the deep bluesy track “born in Joplin” that’s just more fun than we can shake a stick at.
Other musicians, like Grant Landis or Never Shout Never, are known nationally but claim Joplin as the hometown that got them started.
Regardless of your musical taste, we think you’ll appreciate this diverse set of tunes. Enjoy!
Sometimes, we can’t believe the amount of talent we see out of our own little city of Joplin. Guys on a Bus are certainly no exception to this, residing in Joplin but gaining traction all over the country. Their music is paired well with the visuals of budding filmmaker Padon Murdock, who shot, chopped, animated and directed this new video for the song “Bella”.
Our actor in the video is Braden Bare, also a Joplin native, who enjoys photography and design among other creative endeavors. Maybe this will launch his acting career too? Who knows.
We asked Nathan (frontman for the guys) and Padon (director of the video) each a question:
Bella is a song I wrote as a response to my friend. She told me to write something happier. Said I needed to or something. She’s s wonderful person and she was right but at the time I took that nudge and took it a different direction and made this song. It’s a sarcastically happy song about the struggle of being a band that wants to write happy stuff but is often sad.
The process for making this video was ongoing. We were working on stuff up until the very last moment. I was editing, rearranging, reanimating and so on. We wanted it to be a video that people wanted to watch again, and we wanted it to have a cool look that struck people. We knew going in that we weren’t going to be able to achieve a traditional big-camera spectacle (give us a break, we’re Indie,) but we thought it was new and interesting, and we leaned on that instead.
This was probably one of the coolest moments I’ve had in Joplin. We pulled Joplin Ave table #37 into the alley, sat 5 guys around it, and had an amazing conversation about the art that surrounded us in that very spot.
Termed “artist alley” (yes, super original we know) by someone at some point, this alley is host to bursts of color, thousands of bottle caps configured into murals, wall-art RIP memorials to a beloved bar bar employee, and graffiti from the most talented spray-can handlers in town. In the middle of dumpsters and broken glass is a whole lot of unexpected beauty.
We conducted our interview in the middle of a paint day for some of the guys, who were finishing up a wall they’d started before winter set in. Dozens of spray paint cans surrounded us, 90s hip hop set the tone, and some Carmine’s pizza relaxed our stomachs as we sat just a few yards from the restaurants’ back door.
We talked about the origins and effects of art in this alley, and about graffiti, community, tips for young artists, thoughts on photos of their work, and much more.
Here’s the transcript from our time.
Well if you climb up mountains
Store your gravel in a vat,
Then you’ll need to come to Joplin
Where we trod on gorgeous chat.
For our chat is like the desert
But without that snowing sand
And it’s tall like Mt. McKinley
(But less racist and less grand).
It’s the leavings from the minings
Where we left our fathers dead,
But less toxic than their corpses
Cause it’s only filled with lead.
Oh and if you like Niagra
You will love our Great Big Falls
For Niagra’s fresh and flowy
And ours holds some Casterols.
Well I wouldn’t like to stand in it
Unless my feet need glass
And I wouldn’t like to sit on it
With where I pass my gas.
But it’s beautiful to look at
And it’s smells of sea and fish,
Water rising every evening
From that copper, nickel wish
That you and all your buddies
Tossed as if in Trevi Fount
But your wishes all die with you
Plus you’ve flushed your bank account.
We have so many restaraunts
That our restaraunts pick the bones
Of the restaraunts that ate restaraunts
Like a restaurant Game of Thrones
Like the time the Bearded Lady
And some other local Jones
Picked the leavings of the building
That we used to call Caldones
Unless you count the highway
Or monopolies of spark,
Unless you count the hillside
Kept by monks we call Ozárk,
Unless you count tornados, parks,
Our building-steeple chase,
We’re less about our landmarks.
We’re more a people place.
F.C. Shultz was on the scene at Joplin's first Third Thursday of 2019 counting all the puppers. He saw many more puppers than he thought he would, but he's not complaining.
Photo by Leighann Renee on Unsplash
On Sunday, March 3, 2019, Hurts Donuts of Joplin MO, provider of late night sweet cravings, closed its doors at the age of 2. This franchise location was opened on January 4, 2017 in Joplin, MO to the delighted public. It received many customers during all hours of the day and night, and served the Joplin community delicious treats for 815 days. It employed a number of Joplin locals.
Hurts had a passion for painting your tastebuds with vivid flavors and happy thoughts. It also loved to watch the Rangeline traffic flow by as the sun set behind the store. It combined its love of Joplin and love of sugary goodness to create the extraordinary art we call Hurts Donuts. Donuts of various kinds were admired not only by the Joplin friends and family, but also by all who passed through the city. It was known for its creative variety of doughy goodness, its intoxicating smell, and its kind and compassionate spirit. Hurts was not preceded in closing by any of the other many store locations.
Hurts is survived by several employees, the deep fryer, and multiple containers of colored sprinkles and toppings. A service will be held on Monday, April 1st, 2019 in the parking lot of the used-to-be Hurts Donuts Co. off of 1602 S. Rangeline road at 5 o’clock p.m. Flowers or donations are not being accepted at this time,, but stale Oreos & breakfast cereal can be dropped off as topping tributes.
RetroGal Rambles- The Joplin Motel Scene
Where do you want to go in Joplin--or, rather, where DID you want to go in Joplin?
We all know Joplin has a rich mining legacy, amazing downtown history and buildings, and is mentioned in a famous song featuring Route 66.
What you may not know- and amazingly, few do- is how the flourishing east side of Joplin (a.k.a. Rangeline) came to be.
I’m gonna start with….*drumroll*...Rangeline before it was Rangeline. First of all, WHY did they call it Rangeline? Actually, I don’t know that specific tidbit. What I DO know is that at first it was Range Line Road, and it was pretty sparse. At the far north end there was a lovely little junior college and a few small businesses. But mainly it was comprised of residences. Essentially, there didn’t NEED to be more along this stretch of road, since folks were getting their kicks on Route 66.
Then, it happened- progress. A new roadway across America was about to change the face of American travel, and with it many a small town that depended on the “The Mother Road” would be bypassed forever. Route 66 became famous in 1946 with the iconic song sung by Nat King Cole. (Check out that classic song here: Route 66 ). The highway had its heyday for 60 years, but the late ‘50’s ushered in the new Interstate.
This is a question I often hear one resident ask another. Sometimes, I’ve asked it that way myself. And it’s kind of funny, that we say it the same way a prison inmate asks of another, “whatcha in for?”
Referring to our city as a prison is a great way to make it feel like one.
While I didn’t grow up IN Joplin, I’ve lived near it all my life. And I too once had the thought “I gotta get out of here.” So, like many others, I did. I went to a bigger city. There was more to do. It felt more relevant, culturally updated, artsy. Everything was, technically speaking, bigger and better.
But the truth is, I couldn’t bring myself to feel at home there. An unexpected thing began to happen; I started to see the good in Joplin. Joplin visits felt increasingly more like a homecoming. Every thing that annoyed me about the city became easier to overlook.
We hope you enjoyed Issue 1. If you want to stay up to date with all things Joplin Toad related, and to know when Issue 2 is coming out, follow JoplinToad below. Or, if you prefer to get your information by email, join the Toadmail list below.
