Pursuit to Algiers (1945)

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In one of the last films in the series, British authorites recruit Sherlock Holmes to protect the young heir to a European throne. Universal Pictures released Pursuit to Algiers (1945) on October 26, 1945. Basil Rathbone returns for the twelfth of fourteen times as Sherlock Holmes. Nigel Bruce again plays his assistant Dr. John Watson. As the film begins, Sherlock

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Detective Desmond Gets His Men

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Before he became St. Louis Chief of Detectives in 1890, William Desmond plied his trade as a Detective with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. During February 1890, Detective Desmond’s persistent efforts to locate two confidence men paid off with the arrest of both men. “Kinch” Keegan and “Thatch” Grady were brother-in-laws and accomplices in several confidence games.  On January

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Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939)

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On July 7, 1939, Twentieth Century-Fox Films released the final Mr. Moto “B” film starring Peter Lorre as Inspector Kentaro Moto.  Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation finds Mr. Moto accompanying the Queen of Sheba’s Crown from its discovery in an Egyptian archaeological site to a San Francisco museum.  Mr. Moto suspects the arch criminal Metaxess, who authorities believed was dead, intends

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John Riley Collects Poll Tax

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My second great-grandfather John Riley Deweese served as Welch Township Republican Committee Chairman in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri for most of his adult life.  Besides holding party caucuses in his home, John Riley served as Road Commissioner in the 1910s.  Residents mostly traversed the roads by horse and buggy. One of the mechanisms governments used to collect fees for road

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