Ken Steinhoff, Author at Cape Girardeau History and Photos

February 19, 2010January 7, 2012

Fender-Bender at Broadway and Fountain

Looking south toward the Idan-Ha Hotel

I’ve got a gazillion wreck pictures in my files, but I’m going to run only those that are of unusual vehicles, unusual circumstances or have interesting backgrounds. This fender-bender between a car and a taxicab at the corner of Broadway and Fountain in 1966 fits the criteria. I assume the two guys in the foreground were the drivers from their universal “Oh, Bleep” pose.

The old Idan-Ha Hotel is on the corner. I spent many a lunch hour in the coffee shop there when I was working at The Missourian.

Looking north toward the Marquette Hotel

The Marquette Hotel is on the right and the H&H Building is on the left.

Officer Fred Kaempfer directs traffic

I looked at the officer directing traffic and thought I had a shot of him from another occasion. Yep. It was a portrait of a guy with sort of a soulful look in his eyes. I remembered him as being one of the nicest guys who ever wore a uniform.

Wife Lila immediately recognized him from her days working at the Rialto Theater. The only problem was that we couldn’t think of his name to save ourselves.

Fortunately, we have house guests from Cape Girardeau staying with us. Lila’s sister, Marty Perry Riley (Class of 68) and her husband, Don Riley (class of 67) are in town for Marty to do a chalk drawing in the Lake Worth Street Painting festival this weekend. Son Adam’s company, DedicatedIT has brought her down the last three years to do the drawings. (It’s chilly down here this year, but it’s generally not hard to convince her to come to Florida in February with the kind of weather Cape’s been having.)

As soon as I showed them the photo, they both said, “Fred Kaempfer.” Don had been a Cape police officer himself.

What I didn’t know about Officer Kaempfer was that he was a song writer who came up with “Keep Walking On,” sung by Ken Roberts, in 1970. Fred died in 2004, at 80. His obituary fleshed out his life. He worked at Leming Sawmill for 25 years, was a Cape policeman from 1965 to 1973, and was a Scott City policeman from 1973 until he retired in 1978.

A letter to the editor in The Missourian after his death pointed out something else. Few know that during World War II Kaempfer fought in five major campaigns: Sicily, Central Europe, Normandy, Rhineland and the invasion of France, where he was awarded the Medal of Freedom.

View to the east shows First Federal Savings and The Southeast Missourian

It was a hot day in 1966, if the temperature sign on the First Federal Savings is correct – 88 degrees. This is quite a contrast with a Frony picture taken at the same intersection during a snow storm when the temperature was 28 degrees on the sign. You can see it in Fred Lynch’s Southeast Missourian blog.

Notice the phone number on the side of the cab: ED. 5-4433. ED stood for Edgewater. Jackson was the Circle exchange.

You can see The Missourian Building and the Royal N’Orleans, but the KFVS tower hasn’t been built yet.

The Idan-Ha is gone

The Idan-Ha Hotel caught fire a couple of times and was torn down. Here’s what it looked like on Oct. 24, 2009.

The Marquette Hotel escaped the wrecking ball

The future of the Marquette Hotel was very much in doubt for many years, but it looks like it’s taken on a new life. The canopies over the doors were more interesting when the building was a hotel, but, overall, the building looks better than it has in decades.

Note the KFVS TV building sticking high up into the sky.

February 17, 2010February 17, 2010

Mystery Cheerleaders

This is going to be one of my mystery posts. I don’t know who these girls are, what they are doing or even what town they were in.

I know that the house they’re practicing in front of is numbered 121. The trees have plenty of leaves, so it must be late summer or early fall, particularly since most of the girls are dressed in shorts. The year is sometime between 1963 and 1967.

Since these girls don’t look like anyone I remember as being Cape Central cheerleaders, I’m guessing that I might have shot this while cruising Jackson for The Jackson Pioneer. Of course, they could also have been from Notre Dame or College High.

Let me know if you recognize anyone.

Photo gallery of mystery cheerleaders or wannabe cheerleaders

(Click on any image to make it larger, click on the left or right side to step through the gallery.)

February 16, 2010February 16, 2010

I Was a Lousy Date

She also serves who only sits and waits

(With apologies to English poet John Milton, who actually wrote, “They also serve who only stand and wait.”) That often mis-quoted line came to me when I saw this frame from the December 28, 1966 College High Tournament that pitted the Central High School Tigers against Delta .

The cute girl sitting at the left of the scorers table is Lila Perry (Class of 66). This week marks the 45th year since we started dating. This is also her birthday week, which prompted Bill Hopkins to write on her Facebook wall, “I know that being married to a man several decades older than you can be stressful at times.” Bill has, obviously honed his survival skills over the years.

She’s a treasure. Our dates weren’t like most other couple’s dates. Going to a sporting event meant she was sitting in the stands or bleachers while I ran up and down the sidelines shooting pictures. While our classmates were paired up admiring the full moon from Cape Rock, we were in my basement darkroom processing film for the next day’s paper. I guess the orangish-yellowish safelight looked sort of like a full moon.

Instead of music, we listened to the police radio in my 1959 Buick LaSabre. Many an evening’s plans would get derailed when an interesting call came across the speaker. If you follow the link above, you’ll read of a few more of my transgressions.

It’s a wonder we were ever together long enough to have two great kids and a grandson. It’s amazing how much we all look alike.

The basketball bleacher shot was a good reminder to me of what a trooper she’s been to put up with my crazy lifestyle all these years.

Central High vs. Delta

The taller, six-seeded Tigers won 64-57 over the 11th-seeded Delta team, but The Missourian’s account the next day made it sound like a squeaker.

Delta played an aggressive game until the final minutes, when the Tigers bulled their way to layups. The Tigers went into the lead 56-66 as Terry Field connected with a free throw with 2:30 left.

From that point on, it was easy layups as Delta tried to get the ball and left the tall Tigers unguarded under the nets.

Both teams hit on 25 field goals and the Tigers made 14 of 24 charity tosses for the margin of victory. Delta made 7 of 15 and had only three chances from the free throw line in the last half. The lead changed hands 16 times and was tied nine times as the teams struggled.

Larry Johnson led the scoring with 23 points for the Tigers. Carl Eakins paced the Bobcats with 24 points and took game honors.

Cape Central High School Scoring

Field 12

Johnson 23

Blackiston 19

Kirkpatrick 6

Proctor 4

FG – 25

FT – 14 of 24

F – 11

Delta High School Scoring

Kight 7

Eakins 24

Below 8

Burnett 6

Cook 12

FG – 25

Ft – 7 of 12

F – 17

Gallery of photos from Cape Central vs. Delta

Click on any picture to make it larger, then click on the left or right size to move through the images.

February 15, 2010

Capaha Park, SE Hospital, Franklin School

Missourian photographer Fred Lynch had a Frony picture of the Capaha Park Lagoon being drained and being cleaned in 1962 in his f/8 and Be There blog. That reminded me that I had just seen some aerial photos I had taken of that area April 14, 1964, after the work had been completed.

I don’t know if Ernie Chiles and I had a mission this day or if we were just flying around for the fun of it. I’ll be publishing other photos from the flight from time to time.

This overall shot shows Capaha Park in the lower left-hand corner; Houck Stadium is up and to the left; the Cape Traffic bridge and the river are at the top; Franklin School is the large building with empty space behind it just to the right of center and Southeast Hospital is diagonally across the street from the park. The white smear at the top right is a reflection off the plane’s window. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Same photo, with Capaha Park area enlarged

Disturbing the peace

You can see two cars parked on Cherry Hill across from the Rose Garden. I remember the day with The Missourian’s cop reporter came back from checking the overnight police blotter.

“I’m never going to be able to get this in the paper, but it’s too good not to share. One of the items, in typical cop-speak, read, ‘While on routine patrol of Capaha Park, I noticed a crowd of people gathered around a car parked on Cherry Hill. The crowd dispersed when I approached. I shined my flashlight through the driver-side window and witnessed a couple in sexual congress. I tapped on the window. When they finished the act in which they were muchly engaged, I cited them for disturbing the peace.’ To my way of thinking,” the reporter continued, “the couple should have filed against the cop for disturbing the piece.”

If you look closely at the parking lot to the right of the swimming pool (the white area left of center), you can see something tall sticking up. I wonder if it’s part of the carnival rides Terry Hopkins mentioned in the post about the trains in Cape parks.

… I did notice that in the background on the middle shot you could see the the old carival rides that used to be in the park. Mike Stovall and I used to work for “Booty” King the guy who owned them. I think I made the princely sum of .35 an hour, plus we got a deal on a hot dog and coke each day! Big fun and living LARGE when you were fourteen! Thanks for bringing back this memory!

A view looking east from Caruthers

The front lawn of Central High School is at bottom right; Franklin School is in the right center; Southeast Hospital is at left center; the road running from left to right at the bottom of the photo is Caruthers. The curvy road at the left is Broadway. I always thought of Broadway as being fairly straight, but it has some significant curves.

Franklin School neighborhood

Franklin School is in the middle. Independence runs diagonally at the right; Themis is just to the right of Franklin School and Broadway runs in front of Capaha Park.

I’m curious about the large white house at the bottom of the photo. It has a street or driveway that looks like a question mark leading to and around it. It looks like something I should remember, but I’m drawing a blank. Anyone?

Southeast Hospital at night in 2009

When I was in Cape last fall, I played around with some night time exposures of buildings along Broadway (and Wimpy’s). The tiny Southeast Hospital of 1964 has grown to gobble up the surrounding neighborhood.