Sometimes it takes a disaster for everyone to open their eyes.

Retired farmer Ron Cook has never forgotten May 22, 1962. He was 17 years old.

"The authorities woke us up knocking on the door, honking the horn, what the heck was going on," Cook said.

The Cooks lived near the Missouri-Iowa border in Putnam County, not far from Unionville where Cook lived.

At 4 a.m. Ron made a startling discovery. Continental Airlines Flight 11 to Kansas City didn't make it.

"It was pretty scary," Ron Cook said. "The main part of the fuselage was laying right here."

Ila Jean Webber lived about a mile away.

"We had been to the movie and we heard thunder but there no clouds," Webber said.

Traces of dynamite were found in the wreckage. The jet exploded over Iowa and crashed in Missouri.

Forty five people died in America's first ever sabotage of a commercial jet airliner.

"I think it has been forgotten because it changed America. People don't understand our security. It got tighter in airports because of what happened here," Historian Duane Crawford said.

Crawford has written several newspaper articles about the crash. But still, so many people in Putnam County don't know about the crash. There's no monument in Putnam County, and there's no monument where the bodies were taken in Unionville.

Mary Beth Dehaven of the Putnam Historical Society helped. About 10 years ago she started collecting stories and items for the County Historical Society.

"This is an important, newsworthy event that happened in this county that everyone should know about. The generations will never know about it if we don't document it," Dehaven said.

As it turns out, Flight-11 was brought down by Thomas Doty. He was facing other criminal charges, and bought $150,000 in life insurance before the flight.

The folks at the Putnam County Historical Society have a saved a little money to build a monument, but they need more.

The lead FBI investigator in that jet crash brought down the U.S. President ten years later. His name was Mark Felt. Just a few years ago we learned from the Watergate era that Felt was indeed deepthroat.