History

Beardstown was first settled by a man named Thomas Beard in 1819. His son was Edward "Red" Beard, a noted gambler and saloon keeper of the Old West who was killed in a gunfight in Kansas in 1873 by "Rowdy Joe" Lowe. Thomas Beard erected a log cabin at the edge of the Illinois River, from which he traded with the local American Indians and ran a ferry. Later he built a two-story brick building which was used for 85 years as a store and inn. This inn is alleged to have sheltered Abraham Lincoln on his visits to Beardstown, but that is legend and unconfirmed. The building was demolished and replaced by a post office.

The Beardstown Ladies Fraud

From 1984-1993, a group of 16 late aged women were picking stocks in the Dow Jones and over the course of nine years were claiming returning of 23.4% on their stocks. Once they went public with the amazing returns, they gained national recognition for their success. The Beardstown Ladies, with an average age of 70 (1994), were asked to appear on "The Donahue Show", CBS's "Morning Show", NBC's "The Today Show", and ABC's "Good Morning America". For six straight years they were honored by the National Association of Investors Corp's "All-Star Investment Clubs". In 1993, they produced their first home video for investors called, "The Beardstown Ladies: Cooking Up Profits on Wall Street". By 1994, they wrote their first book, "The Beardstown Ladies' Common-Sense Investment Guide", which sold over 800,000 copies by 1998 and was a NY Times best seller. The Beardstown Ladies become a global phenomenon and TV stations from Germany, Brazil, and Japan were interviewing them and taping their monthly meetings in Beardstown. Although their success was beyond anything this small town of Beardstown (Pop. 5,766) had ever seen, the seeds of scandal were planted in 1998. In late 1998, a Chicago magazine noticed that the group's returns included the fees the women paid every month. Without them, the returns dwindled to just 9%, underperforming the Dow. An article in the Wall Street Journal led the ladies to hire an outside auditor, which proved they had indeed misstated their returns. (WSJ, 05/2006). Time magazine stated that they should be jailed for fraud and misrepresentation, but later found to be (jokingly) stating that remark. Currently, The Beardstown Ladies are still buying stocks, most of which are underperforming in the Dow and their books can bought from Amazon.com for mere pennies.