It seems like Almost Yesterday that Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois experienced an unusually hot and dry summer. The year was 1867 and rainfall remained scarce well into the autumn. Temperatures were high, humidity low, and the landscape turned brown and crunchy. By mid-November, with crop yields low, a higher than usual number of hunters took to the woods and dry wetlands in pursuit of animals that could be used to sustain families through the coming winter. This resulted in an