SLEEPY HOLLOW COMES TO LIFE
Forty-one years ago in mid-October, Doug Elley pulled up to Lupus, Missouri, in his canoe. He was planning to stop further down the Missouri River at Cooper’s Landing, but the rain drove him ashore. Stopping along the banks of Lupus would alter the course of Elley's life.
The following day, Elley journeyed back to Lupus to “make sure it was for real.”
After being drafted out of graduate school for two years during the Vietnam War, Elley said living quietly next to the Missouri River sounded surreal. The town was vibrant and beautiful. He knew that he wanted to live there right away.
Elley has lived in Lupus now for 41 years. Of those years, he was the mayor for 15 years. He said the town has gotten sleepier and smaller compared to when he first arrived. There were only 33 residents in Lupus, according to the 2010 United States Census Bureau, but two people moved away in October, shrinking the population to about 29 people, says Elley. The town had hosted the widely popular Chili Festival every October for 35 years; however, they decided to cancel it in 2017 due to the thousands of visitors that the town struggled to accommodate.
Even though the annual Chili Festival is gone, Elley still gets anxious when October approaches. It’s a happy anxiety, though. Without any family left except for his cat, Elley said he looks forward to his close friend Lee Ruth’s family arriving in town. The visitors are diverse — some come from as far away as Chicago, and many different generations are represented.
Elley and the family make apple cider using Elley’s apple press machine. It’s a time to catch up, laugh and enjoy each other’s company. They’ve kept the tradition every October for more than 35 years. It’s the time of year when the quiet, small community is filled with vibrant energy again.
Family members bring a variety of apples from the local area to make the annual apple cider. Sometimes other fruits, such as pears for this year's batch, are brought and added to the mix. It can take a whole year to even get a plentiful supply of gallon jugs to match the supply of fruits that are pressed.
Laughter and jubilant songs fill the air as the family arrives. Hugs are exchanged. Everpresent is a mug that is passed around, full to the brim of the cider. Each member takes a turn getting their fix before passing it off to whoever looks like they need it most.
Doug Elley's cider press is more than 150 years old. He bought it at a state sale in the 1980s and has been using it almost every year since, to press apple cider as a part of an annual family tradition.
"Not only enjoying the fruits of your labor, but watching your friends enjoy it, watching your kids enjoy a glass of apple cider. All that stuff is rewarding in some way" – Andrew Ruth
02
Lupus in
the eighties:
"The Hippie
Invasion"
James Denny is a historian. He has been living in Lupus, Missouri since 1993, when “the worst flood in Missouri River history” happened. Interviewed by our group on Sunday, Oct. 7, 2018, he recalled the arrival of a new generation to Lupus in the late eighties, and the aging of the town.
What were the consequences of the big flood of 1993?
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It was such an earth-shaking event. Somehow the town emerged different after the flood of 1993 than what it was before. When the flood came in, it was such a tragic event. It is the only flood in the history of the Missouri River that flooded every house.
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After the flood, why did you decide to stay?
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We were a “hell no, we won’t go” kind of town.
We are the only community that decided to elevate every house in town and continue living by this old river here. We just think that Lupus is a small but special little place. We have always had a special relationship with the river and it just never occurred to us to move to a higher ground. The 1993 flood didn’t gauge out massive holes, and it didn't wash away huge chunks of the river banks. It did not transform the town in any way. So we knew the elevated houses would stand in.
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For 35 years, the Chili Festival was the biggest event to take place in Lupus. Why did it stop in 2017?
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We’ve all gotten old. The folks that used to get around 35 years ago just don’t come down here anymore. The whole demographic of the Chili Fest was starting to change and to move in directions where we didn’t really want it to move. It was supposed to always be an all-time-hippie kind of a festival, and we had a predictable audience and predictable musician that came down here years after year. But gradually it just got to the point where the whole vibe of the fest changed, and we just didn't want to throw a music fest just for the sake of throwing a music fest. If you get two or three thousands people here if an emergency happens, we have absolutely no infrastructure, no way of dealing with emergencies, no law enforcement of any kind.
We were sad about it, it has left a big hole that nothing else has quite filled.
We are afraid that we are going to become another dead little town where nothing ever happens, like all the rest of the little small towns in Missouri.
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What is the community like in Lupus?
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We all get along with each other. When we started showing up here, Doug Elley was the first person to come down here. He discovered the place by canoe and realized there was nothing quite like it. And at that time, the old population was starting to slowly move out.
Houses were coming out for sale, some of them really for quite cheap. That attracted what they call the "hippie invasion".
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Back then, we were hippies.
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Houses were cheap, the place was magical and there is a gigantic island about a couple miles up the river that is a perfect party place for river rats and lovers of that. It all just gradually drew us all down here and then we finally got haircuts and got jobs, and grew up, had children. But it's basically still the same generation that replaced the original generation.
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Are you worried about the future of Lupus?
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The generation that was here when we first started coming down here is totally gone now.
It's all us, and now we are wondering who's gonna take our place, who's gonna keep the town going after us.
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Something will happen, we just don't know what. When we came down here, there were old geezers! Now I'm the older citizen in town! There are a few weddings that take place here and a lot of people use the city hall and that patio area and the picnic table for family reunions. Various kinds of events have happened down here and I presume they will continue to happen. But as far as something like the Chili Fest, probably not.
