TIMES-HERALD (DALLAS, TX) SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS TO ATTEND MARMADUKE MILITARY ACADEMY 

Robert Franklin James - MMA Yearbook 1894 - 1895

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Below is a detailed description of the furnishings used in the Sweet Springs Hotel when it was completed in 1877. 

In October 1878, the Sweet Springs Company entered into a contract with P.E.B. Wright to purchase the hotel for $25,000.  Mr. Wright was a young lawyer in Sweet Springs.  His tragic death on January 3, 1879, at the age of 28, must have created issues with paying back the loan that he took out from the Marmaduke's to make the purchase.  In December of 1880, a Sheriffs Trustee Sale occurred at the Sweet Springs Hotel steps.  The Sweet Springs Company bought the property back for $12,000.

Personal Property of Sweet Springs Hotel as detailed in the 1878 deed:

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SWEET SPRINGS HOTEL/MARMADUKE MILITARY ACADEMY BARRACKS c. 1892

Courtesy of The Historical Society of Missouri (Nancy Ehrlich's Adam Hill Collection)

SWEET SPRINGS

Published in Brownsville Herald

13 April 1877

The great work goes steadily on, and everything is under whip and spur.  The sound of the hammer is heard from early morn until the setting of the sun.  About fifty active working men ae now pushing to completion the mammoth hotel, under the watchful eye of Mr. Richard Shinnick, the contractor, and the boss carpenter, Mr. Silas Robinson.  Not a moment is lost from seven to twelve, or from one to six.  When Mr. Frank Shinnick is heard to cry aloud, “six o’clock”, then all hands-carpenters, brick and stone masons, painters, roofers, plasterers, plumbers, teamsters and laborers – with one accord are seen moving off to their boarding-houses at double quick time; and if you don’t think they do justice at the table, just drink Sweet Spring water and work one week for the boss, and you will have some idea of what it costs to keep boarding house at the Springs.

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1891 - 1892 Marmaduke Military Academy Baseball Team

THE MARMADUKE MILITARY ACADEMY

Published Originally - October 6, 2004

Updated March 2024

 Author - Sam Blain, Jr 

No institution of higher learning during the 1800’s brought more fame or attracted more attention to this region of the state than the Marmaduke Military Academy established in Sweet Springs in 1891, by Leslie Marmaduke, Darwin Marmaduke, Charles Farrar and Frank Tate.  The academy was named in honor of the Marmaduke brothers’ father, Missouri Governor Meredith M. Marmaduke (1791 – 1864), and brother, Confederate General and Missouri Governor John Sappington Marmaduke (1833-1887).

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