Gov. Frederick D. Gardner on July 2, 1919, called for a special session of the Missouri General Assembly to consider ratifying the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States — one that would extend suffrage to women. It was this change that would allow St. James to make history by electing its first woman mayor.

At the session, Gardner said Missouri should join other states in passing the 19th Amendment.

“Missouri must take the lead in this long-deferred justice to the state and the nation,” Gardner said.

After a quick vote, Missouri became the 11th state in the Union to ratify the 19th Amendment. Just over a month later, on Aug. 24, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to approve the amendment, allowing it to meet the three-fourths threshold for state approval required to amend the Constitution.

Just one year later, in 1921, the city of St. James would elect Mayme Hanrahan Ousley as the first female mayor in state history.

Hanrahan Ousley was born on Jan. 2, 1887, in Edgar Springs. She married Edward Ousley, also a Phelps County native, in 1905. The following year, the couple moved to St. James where Ousley opened a dental practice.

The Ousleys became involved in local civic and community organizations. The couple were active members of the local Masonic Lodge and Republican Party. Ousley  played for St. James’ semi-professional baseball team. Hanrahan Ousley often accompanied the team on the road when they traveled for games, where she served as something of a  road manager and “chief rooter,” according to a 1921 article in The Southeast Missourian. Her habit of policing the baseball team’s appearance on the road earned her the nickname “granny.”

According to an article in The Southeast Missourian from June 3, 1921, a situation involving a troublesome local youth is what led Hanrahan Ousley to run for mayor that year.

“A little boy who wouldn’t behave was the cause of St. James electing the first woman mayor in Missouri,” the paper wrote.

According to the report, Hanrahan Ousley caught wind that local youth, Jimmie Blank, had been arrested and jailed in Rolla with plans for him to be sent to reform school. Hanrahan Ousley had helped Blank get out of jail several times prior after he had been caught “putting tick tacks on windows and stealing ice cream at Sunday school picnics.”

This time, Blank was reportedly being sent to reform school by local marshals without an official hearing. Hanrahan Ousley took the train from St. James to Rolla and was able to retrieve Blank and return him to St. James.

“I couldn’t understand why they were shipping boys off to reform school without trying to reform them at home,” Hanrahan Ousley told The Southeast Missourian.

When asked how she was able to get Blank out of custody and back to St. James, Hanrahan Ousley said, “I went after him. You can get anything you go after. The only way I knew of finding out the things I wanted to know was to become mayor. Right there and then I decided I was going to be mayor.”

Hanrahan Ousley announced her candidacy in February 1921, less than a year after the 19th Amendment was ratified.

She reportedly spent six weeks going door-to-door in St. James and campaigned directly to newly-enfranchised women who, for the first time in their lives, could cast a vote in local elections. She also promised constituents that she would only draw a $1 monthly salary. Hanrahan Ousley’s other campaign promises included cleaning up the town, cracking down on speeders, and expanding indoor plumbing for residences.

She told the Southeast Missourian that she intended to put through “many municipal housekeeping reforms.”

Her opponents were incumbent mayor J.J. Forester, and local hotel proprietor Roger Hall. Forester dropped out of the race three days before election day.

According to the Bicentennial History Book of St. James, 587 votes were cast in the election, and one-fourth of the women in town did not vote, with the others largely casting their vote for Hanrahan Ousley.

Hanrahan Ousley’s campaign tactics paid off, and on election day she defeated Hall by a slim margin of just eight votes.

When it was time for Hanrahan Ousley to be sworn in as Missouri’s first female mayor on May 2, 1921, Forester was so upset at having lost to a woman, that he refused to be present at the council meeting where he was supposed to administer the oath of office to Hanrahan Ousley.

After taking office, Hanrahan Ousley started to make good on her promise to clean up St. James–something she took quite literally.

Hanrahan Ousley started by making improvements to the St. James City Hall, which she described as “a small frame building with one large ugly room. I am going to start on that first thing. It is going to be cleaned up. The place is dirty, just the way city buildings are when men run them. The first thing that will go will be the cuspidors (spittoons).”

She got rid of spittoons at City Hall, repainted the building inside and out, and partitioned it to create a mayor’s office, city council offices, and jail under one roof. She also began enforcing beautification standards in the city, and reportedly worked with the State Board of Health to begin requiring landlords to install indoor plumbing.

She famously installed signs at various parts of town that warned drivers: “Drive slow and see our beautiful city. Drive fast and see our jail.”

Hanrahan Ousley also called for general infrastructure improvements and modernization. As mayor, she promoted a bond issue that would finance a power plant and advocated for the construction of a city water system.

As mayor, Hanrahan Ousley traveled and spoke to chapters of the League of Women Voters across the state. In 1922, she was also elected treasurer of the Ozark Trail Association, an organization that locally maintained roads and trails, predating the United States Federal Highway System.

While Hanrahan Ousley made good on many of her campaign promises, one that she didn’t keep was a promise that she would only seek one term as mayor.

Following two unsuccessful bids for state office in 1924 and 1926, first for the State House of Representatives and then State Senate, where she failed to translate her success as mayor into election to a higher office, Hanrahan Ousley made repeated attempts for the St. James mayor’s office to mixed success.

In 1927 she ran unsuccessfully for mayor of St. James. Then, in 1930 she was reportedly drafted as a last-minute candidate for mayor without her knowledge or consent. Although she had no time to campaign, that year she lost by only two votes.

She ran unopposed for mayor in 1939 and won, and followed by another successful bid in 1941. After failed attempts in 1943 and 1947, she won her fourth and final term as mayor in 1955 at 68 years old.

Ousley left behind a legacy as a trailblazer in civic life. During her career, she served as a trustee of the State Board of Training Schools and the Odd Fellows Retirement Home; as president of the State Assembly of Rebekah Lodge; and as an officer of the Phelps County Historical Society, the National Good Roads Association and the Order of the Eastern Star. She was also a member, with her husband Ousley, of the local chamber of commerce and St. James Charity Board.

Hanrahan Ousley died in 1970, at the age of 83. She’s buried in the St. James Cemetery with her husband Ousley, who died in 1958.

Today, Hanrahan Ousley’s picture stands out as the only female face among the portraits of past St. James mayors in the towns’ City Council Chambers. Her portrait can also be seen at St. James City Hall, which was named for her in 2013.

According to the Bicentennial History Book of St. James, Hanrahan Ousley said, after her first year as mayor, that “a woman is as capable as a man. Once she accepts responsibility, she stays with it until it reaches completion. I’m not afraid of criticism; that is what keeps me working toward a better city. I just want to leave office in the knowledge that St. James is in better shape than I found it.”