Seventy-five years ago this month, Army Lt. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle visited the little Route 66 town in central Missouri that was named after him just two years before. Thousands attended the event.
Today, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter went to Doolittle (population 648) but found few people who knew about the origin of the town’s name.
About the only evidence of Doolittle’s visit in 1946 is a brass plaque commemorating the event on the town’s community center, just off old Route 66. The Cookin’ from Scratch restaurant once had a thorough history of the town on the back of its menu, but the restaurant closed earlier this year and was replaced by a Stuckey’s.
But Jimmy Doolittle was a big deal. Just four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he led a daring bombing run on Japan, called the Doolittle Raid, that provided a morale-booster to the U.S. war effort and earned him the Medal of Honor. “Thirty Seconds over Tokyo” and other films referred to the raid.
Many years before, he also pioneered the use of flying by instruments alone, or flying blind, that now is common with aircraft.
The town of Doolittle once was called Centertown, and it began to boom when Fort Leonard Wood was built nearby during the early 1940s. When the town was finally incorporated in 1944, the idea to rename it Doolittle, after the general, was well received. Gen. Doolittle also promised to attend the town’s dedication once he had the time.
That time came on Oct. 11, 1946, with Gen. Doolittle flying a small plane from St. Louis to Vichy, Missouri, then rode in a motorcade to his namesake. By several accounts, more than 4,000 people attended the ceremony.
A United Press story in the Springfield News-Leader provided some details from the big event:
Doolittle, Mo., staged a big day for Doolittle, Jim, feasting him with squirrel and rabbit from the hills and fish from the nearby Gasconade. It dedicated a plaque bearing his likeness in metallic relief. He heard a locally composed song, “Doolittle, You Did So Much,” sung in his honor. Then he spoke from the hillside park, where the forest foliage was beginning to show the tints of fall. […]
Doolittle, now vice-president of an oil company, took advantage of the opportunity to warn that “the world cannot afford to let history repeat itself.”
“The peace loving peoples of the world must maintain adequate military establishments to enforce their will for peace upon any unthinking nation that should attempt to plunge the world into the disaster of another war,” he continued.
“The most important step toward the establishment of a real peace is the breaking down of isolation, misunderstanding and distrust.”
More from the ceremony:
Doolittle, Mo., was proud of the program and the spread of the food. One of its daughters, Mary Ellen Crain, pretty high school girl, unveiled the plaque. Another of the first citizens Kitty Shefer had written the special song.
Mayor A.R. Cook said the festive board was loaded with more — and he believed better — food than the general could ever find in a big city restaurant.
Doolittle — between bites — agreed.
The Post-Dispatch article contains several photographs from the ceremony that day.
Jimmy Doolittle died in California in 1993 at age 96. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
(Images of Jimmy Doolittle arriving in Missouri via Newspapers.com)
My father-in-law guarded Doolittle and his plain overseas and stateside during WW2. He received a Christmas card every year thereafter from Jimmy Doolittle until Doolittle’s death.
I had never heard of the town. Sad that so few there remember who the town is named for.