Gretna Green or The Marriage Mill.......

I had just taken over driving (Mike usually does the driving, but the sun had made him sleepy) when I saw the Exit sign for Kahoka, MO. I said to him (who had already dozed off), "I really want to see this place."

Mike is "easy"......so he said, "I don't care, go ahead."  It was a good thing, because I had already gotten off at the exit!

Now, the reason I wanted to see this little town, which was about 10 miles off our route was because, in 1932, his parents had come here to get married. I had always wondered "why?"

We drove the 10 or so miles to Kahoka, which is the county seat of Clark County. It's the first courthouse in northeastern Missouri, just south of the Iowa border.

Back in 1932, there was no waiting period, no doctor's exam, nothing needed to get a Marriage License. This was the "Marriage Capital" of the Midwest. People came from Iowa, from Illinois, from wherever to get married in Kahoka, MO. It was the "Gretna Green" in this section of the US. (Gretna Green - taken from Scotland - is a term used to signify towns where one can get married almost immediately.)

Today, we stopped at the Kahoka Library to ask questions and the librarian told us that, back in the day, there were "shacks" all along the street where Justices of the Peace set up shop and performed marriages.
It was a "Marriage Mill."

Nothing was required to get a license (no name, rank or serial number) ,and get married and it could be done within a matter of minutes, by a Justice of the Peace for just $1.00.

Mike grew up in Hillsboro, Henry County, Iowa - not far from the Missouri border, and remembers when people would talk about "going to Kahoka" to get married, because it was so easy. That isn't the case, today. There is now a waiting period so times have changed.

We have a copy of Mike's parent's Marriage License....which was witnessed by his aunt (father's sister) and her husband. However, I still want to get into those courthouse records and see who else, in his family (I'm working on his Family Tree) might have slipped off to Kahoka!!

BTW, Mike's grandfather who was the Physician in Hillsboro was admantly against the marriage of his daughter to Mike's father!! And that.....is probably why.....they went to Kahoka!!!
#GretnaGreen #MarriageMill #KahokaMO