By Pauline Masson –
A colorful mayor who brought a public water system and volunteer fire department to the frontier town of Pacific while he still kept hogs in his backyard was among former leaders featured in a 2015 history program put together by former Mayor Jeff Titter and history author Sue Reed.
The material on past mayors was part of an exhibit showed during a dessert and coffee evening meeting at the Tri-County Senior Center, 800 W. Union, Thursday, May 21, 2015. The pair of history gurus spent two months putting together the exhibit and speaking program on the life and times of individual mayors and what they contributed to the development of the city.
The incorporated town of Pacific was managed by a Board of Trustees and a chairman until 1882, when it became a fourth-class city and could elect a mayor. A total of 14 chairmen and 29 mayors have led the city.
Robert Peck 1877-1882
Robert Peck
After serving six years as chairman of the City of Pacific Board of Trustees, Robert Peck was Pacific’s first elected mayor. Mr. Peck was an illustrious Missouri Pacific Railroad (MoPac) executive, said to be the highest paid employee in the system. He managed the MoPac building and bridge department, which he brought to Pacific in 1870, where it provided employment and community identity to the town from 1870 to 1925.
Railroad historians tell us that for thirty years – 1865-1897 – every wood and steel truss railroad bridge in the Union Pacific/Missouri Pacific (UP/MoPac) Railroad system – across parts of Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas – was built in the Pacific, Missouri railroad shops and carried by rail to the site and assembled. Mr. Peck made regular trips to expand this vast inventory of bridges in his own railroad car. For local bridges he traveled in an adapted Pierce Arrow limousine tricked out to run on the rails
Mr. Peck who lived an elaborate lifestyle and insisted that every visitor who dined at his home wear a suit and tie. He made Pacific a railroad town.
Henry Williams – 1887 + 1930
Mr.Willams, who served fifteen years as Pacific mayor, founded and published Pacific’s first newspapers – the Cabbage Leaf when he was 16; the Pacific Herald, when he was 18; and later the Pacific Transcript. An avowed amateur historian, he gave later Pacific an eye-witness account of the October 1, 1864 Civil War Battle of Pacific, which he witnessed when he was six years old. He would later see and report on World War 1 and World War II. He dutifully published weekly news of friend and relative visits, essays on local history, news of local elections, school terms, new businesses, property transfers and train schedules. As one famous newspaperman said, it was the first draft of history.
In addition to chronicling Pacific activities, as Mayor Mr. Williams had the city dig its first well and develop a city water system, rather than take drinking water from the Meramec River.
Albert Koppits 1880-92, 1894-98, 1904-06, 1910-16
Albert Koppitz
A favorite of the two armchair historians was Albert Koppitz, who won 11 elections, served as mayor longer than any other. His home at North First and Osage, which was later converted into a doctor’s office and insurance company, is still standing.
Identified as “The Father of Pacific,” Mr. Koppitz enlisted the local newspaper to help him persuade business owners to form a Pacific Chamber of Commerce, in which he remained active throughout his life. He also enlisted the local editor to help attract investors for a city shoe factory.
A bonafide hero, he was most loved locally for his efforts during the great flood of 1915. Newspapers lauded Mr. Koppitz’ overnight effort to protect the new city’s water system while his business, the giant banner roller mill was inundated, suffering thousands of dollars of building damage and loss of product.
Clarence Mayle 1932-1946
Clarence Mayle
Clarence Mayle, a man for all seasons, worked in his father’s store at South First and St. Louis. Mr. Mayle was always a forward thinker. Anybody could see that even though you could take a cheap train ride to almost any city in the United States, you could only go to where the tracks ran and once you got off the train you had to find other transportation. He reasoned that people accustomed to travel were ready to be in charge of their own destination. He took out ads in the Pacific Transcript educating readers to that fact. If they really wanted to travel they needed to buy a car.
He painted a full-sized roadster on the St. Louis Street side of his father’s store and started offering cars to people who, up to that time, could go anywhere they wanted to on the train. The railroad station was in back of the store a few hundred feet and 40 or more passenger trains a day still stopped there.
He electrified the town in 1926, when he bought the B.A. Henderson house on Union Street behind his dealership building and moved it up to Osage where it now houses the England Company. The Mayles lived in the house during the move and the clock did not even stop running.
But the best was yet to come. When the Missouri Highway Commission publicly discussed the alignment of the first U.S. Interstate Highway, Route 66, to cross Missouri. Mr. Mayle launched a campaign and enlisted community eaters to lobby the federal highway commission to bring the new Route 66 through Pacific, which brought us the Jensen’s Point lookout park.
Bill Wiest – 1987
Bill Wiest whose motto was plan the flight and fly the plan, moved city hall from an outgrown and outmoded building on south first street – now houses Straatmann Printing – to the current Hoven Street location.
This move triggered a westward expansion of the city that saw the development of commercial business, banks, pharmacies and grocery stores.
Diquie Omer 1980
Diquie Omer is credited with one of the city’s most popular amenities. He staged a prolonged and often unpopular battle to build a city swimming pool in the city park. He drew up plans for a pool that would cost $300,000 and wrote a grant for that amount to the Missouri Clean Water Commission. Some aldermen didn’t like the idea. They said $300,000 was entirely too much for the city to spend on a project and besides a big, fancy swimming pool was too ambitious for a small town like Pacific.
“Their biggest argument was that it would never pay for itself. I argued that we weren’t building it to make money but as a service to the citizens.”
In the end the three aldermen who opposed the pool stood their ground, voted no, and the pool and grant application were approved by a 4-3 vote with the new mayor breaking the tie.
Ed Gass recalled that on the morning of the awards, he and the public works commissioner Langford who were there for the grant awards, thought Pacific’s application was a sure fire thing.
But, it turned out that a lot of cities had applied for grants to build swimming pools that summer and when the Commission returned to session after lunch they decided to cut all the grants in half. Pacific only received $149,000. Ed Gass, Mr. Omer and Mr. Langford came up with plan for the public works department to provide the labor for the construction that the grant would not cover.
The pool opened for the 1979 swimming season with great fanfare.
Ken Quennoz – 1982
Kenneth Quennoz Sr.
Kenneth Quennoz, Sr. – the longest serving elected official in Pacific history – served 26 years as a city alderman, two years as mayor and eight years on the Pacific Fire District board, giving him 36 years of elected service.
As mayor, Mr. Quennoz, hired the first city administrator to manage the day to day activities of the city. A nd made storm water solutions part of development plan site evaluation in city codes.
In 1982 he presided over the worst flood in the city’s history, a record that was only broken in 2015. He teamed with Public Works Ed Gass to craft a series of flood debris clean-up and recovery practices that are still in place today.
Herb Adams 992-94-96-98-06-+ 2008
Herbert Adams
Herbert Adams transformed the infrastructure and the city’s old downtown with programs that successfully captured a portion of the annual income taxes that Pacific residents pay to the federal government to fund Pacific road projects with a series of grants.
His first success was the Lamar Parkway railroad overpass – the first elevated rail crossing in 180 years. He went on to secure flood buyout funds to help citizens move out of harms way and funds for infrastructure projects that improved roads and streets.
Always a skilled wordsmith, he worked with city boards, commissions and committees spelling out the city’s needs and the benefits of their studies.
He also upgraded the city hall that Mayor Wiest built, making the city’s council meeting chamber the envy of other Franklin County cities.
Jill Pigg – 1998
Jill Pigg formed the Pacific Partnership to promote the older section of the city and created a city emergency plan to use city funds and citizens to recover from disaster damage, a model that enabled the City of Pacific to qualify for disaster recovery funds. The Partnership – unarguably one of the most lasting institutions in recent history – has seen several leadership changes but continues to promote Old Town Pacific and stage community events
Ms Pigg also championed a public safety day, organized by former alderman Rick Layton, on the former IGA West Osage parking that paved the way for the growing list of street fairs that we still enjoy.
Jeffrey Titter – 2002
Jeffrey Titter served as mayor in 2002-06. A self-proclaimed history aficionado he placed a small glass case in the city hall lobby and solicited residents to donate history artifacts to be displayed there. The display grew into the Pacific Historical Society Museum in the former Wolf residence on Union Street – now the Knights of Columbus clubhouse – that later merged with the local genealogical society. Today the combined history group creates history exhibits and programs at the city’s history museum in the Red Cedar Inn.
Though he works in another city, Mr. Titter remained active with the Pacific history community, serving as an officer and a constant source of calling up esoteric facts on former businesses and citizens.
Sue Reed First History Guru
Sue Reed
Never a mayor, but she could hav e been. Sue Reed served as branch library supervisor at the Pacific Library for
In Retrospect by Sue Reed
more than 30 years. To many citizens, she was the story lady of their youth, but as a librarian with s small “l,” she amassed a vast archive of Pacific history that is available to all citizens and researchers and is housed in the city history group’s office in the City Parks and Recreation – former Wintec Building – West of the Red Cedar Inn.
Miss Reed began collecting and cataloging obituaries and local history stories as early as 1965. Her collection inspired the formation of the Meramec Valley Genealogical and Historical Society (MVGHS) that later merged wth the City Historical Society.
Her book “In Retrospect,” was the city’s first published Pacific history work and is still a primary source in local history searches.
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Because we’re entering an election cycle facing a busy ballot of hefty a number of candidates who want the job of running the city. I retrieved this material to remind voters that much of what the city enjoys today is a direct result of individuals who were elected to manage the city. So I urge voters to take these candidates seriously, ask lots of questions and vote for individuals who share your views of what is best for the city. – Pauline Masson
