rewrite It’s Travis’ Turn: Historical research for fun and profit – Alexandria Echo Press in 6 to 8 words

There’s almost nothing I like more than historical research, especially looking at primary sources like diaries, court records and newspaper clippings.

For the past two months I have been working on a project to find out as much as I can about an obscure religious cult from the early 20th century. It might not be everybody’s idea of fun, but I’m enjoying it.

The cult went by several different names, usually revolving around the name Adam: The Adamites, the Happy Adam Family, etc.

Their leader, James Sharp, called himself several different names, too, but most often went by the name “Adam God.”

(I recently mentioned this fact to a friend, who responded, “Wow, that guy didn’t have an ego.”)

Sharp called himself this because he claimed to be the reincarnation of the Adam from the Bible, although he was not wedded to this identity, sometimes saying he was Elijah, sometimes saying he was David. Or the King of the Locusts.

It was never a very large cult, topping out at about 50 people at its height, but most of the time hovering around less than 15 at the very most.

The cult didn’t have a settled base of operations, either, as they were chased out of most of the places they visited. They went to Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Washington state, Wyoming, North Dakota, even Canada.

To give a complete rundown of their actions would be too much information for one column, but their story climaxed in Kansas City, Mo., in December of 1908, when they started a gunfight with police in front of city hall. All of the adults in the cult were armed, and most of the children were, too.

Ultimately, five people were killed: Two cult members, two police officers and one bystander.

James Sharp was convicted of second degree murder and spent more than 10 years in prison. He moved to Joplin, Mo., with his wife after his release and died in 1946, a very old man.

I can’t say exactly why this story appeals to me as much as it does, except that it seems to be a quintessential American story, involving three of the big topics: God, guns and sex. (I won’t go into the last of the three — not in this column, anyway.)

As I said, I began to research the cult about two months ago, initially gathering 223 single-spaced pages worth of newspaper articles. At the time, I thought I had exhausted all of my resources, and was very pleased with myself.

Then I began to find more articles. I made a new document, and when it was finished I again thought I was done.

I am currently on my fifth document, and the total number of words has thus far exceeded 260,000.

For reference, most books are 70,000 to 120,000 words long. At approximately 320 words per page, my resource documents would be more than 800 pages long if they were arranged in book form.

I don’t know when I will be finished with this project. As of now I am going through what I have and making notecards outlining the major incidents of the story. I have more than 100 so far, and I haven’t even made it to the riot yet.

Ultimately, I plan to form this material into a book of some kind, although I’m not yet anywhere close to that point. Until then, I’ll continue to gather material. And why not? It’s basically my favorite part.