As Chicago Views Paris 

Thanks to Nancy Stone, President of the Monroe County Historical Society, for sharing this clipping from a 1931 edition of a Monroe County newspaper. 

“That the fame of Paris, Missouri, and the Monroe County Centennial celebration have penetrated to even the most obscure hamlets of America is evidenced by the fact that Monday's Chicago Tribune had more to say editorially about Paris than it did about Al Capone, prohibition or Hoover prosperity.  

Under the heading, "Paris, Missouri," the Tribune said: "Do you know Paris? Not that Paris where they say 'Oui, Oui,' when you propose a drink, nor Paris, Illinois, where they say 'O. Hell' if you don't; but Paris, Missouri, where they argue with St. Paul to 'Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake,' and you'd think everybody was ailing. 

What, Chicago? You don't know the location of Paris, Missouri! It is in Monroe county, hard by Salt River, and it had a noble culture when Chicago was but a collection of huts sticking up out of the mud flats of Lake Michigan with trading Yankees bartering tinware for lodging in the cheap boarding houses that once decorated Michigan Boul. For Paris, Missouri, was plotted by gentlemen from Virginia and

Kentucky, who brought beying hounds, swift horses and lovely women, and whose slaves loved them so much that they lived and died on their masters' farms in Monroe county, scorning the salvation overtures of New England spinster school teachers, who would bring them the culture of dour Connecticut.  

In Paris, Missouri, it is still believed that Lee, with twenty thousand more troops, would have kept Grant out of Richmond as long as Al Capone will stay out of prison; that Jo Shelby was a finer cavalryman than "Jeb" Stuart; that "Pap" Price was a greater raider than Stonewall Jackson, and that if Abraham Lincoln had lived the civil war profiteers in the North would have asked Jeff Davis to start another rebellion. But the town is going to fly the Stars and Stripes in August during the county's centennial celebration, and the seven remaining Confederate colonies have agreed to salute if the brass band will play 'Dixie.'"