Back in the late 1800s, many cities in America had their own small military guard units.
In 1881 Carthage, that unit was the Carthage Light Guard Infantry, and in the next few weeks, a large photograph of that group of men will go on display at the Jasper County Courthouse in Carthage.

Steve Weldon, Jasper County archivist, displayed the huge, table-sized photograph for the Jasper County Courthouse Preservation and Beautification Advisory Board at that group's meeting on Thursday.

"It would be great if this could be framed, and I think it would be one heck of a conversation piece in the courthouse," Weldon said. "It would be like the 203 Engineer Battalion of today. Every city had a volunteer unit. Joplin had the Joplin Rifles,

Carthage had the Carthage Light Guard, I think Springfield had the Springfield Rifles and Avilla had the Avilla Zouaves. Each town had its own company and they were basically like National Guard companies, but this was back in the days when it was more of a social club than anything else."

Weldon said these units could not be nationalized by the President like National Guard units of today, but when the Spanish-American War started in 1898, the entire unit enlisted as a group.

However, the war only lasted three months, and it ended when the Carthage Light Guard was training at Camp Chickamauga in Georgia.

Weldon and the rest of the committee speculated as to where the photograph was taken. Weldon said he believed it was taken in a neighborhood of large homes that once stood on the road to Webb City.

He said the picture was part of a collection of photos left to the Archives by local historian Marvin VanGilder.

Committee Chairwoman Sue Vandergriff asked if there were similar pictures of other such units in Jasper County, but Weldon said the other cities did not keep the same quality of historic preservation that Carthage had.

Weldon credited the late Ward Schrantz with preserving Carthage's history and passing that history to VanGilder.

Weldon said Chris Wiseman, at the Joplin Museum Complex, borrowed the photo and made the large blow-up of the print.

Weldon said the archives had one of the "pith helmets" worn by the members of the unit that could be put on display with the picture.

In other business, the committee heard that it had a bit over $5,000 to spend on projects it could pick, and $9,177, which is earmarked to maintain the Christmas lights on the courthouse.

The committee also gave its formal blessing to the Route 66 display proposed in March by Joplin Museum Complex director Brad Belk for the wall across the isle from the historic elevator.