Cape Girardeau History and Photos » Photos around Cape

Broadway Demolition

Ken Steinhoff — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 05:16:05 +0000

When I first saw this photo, I thought it made have been the razing of the St. Charles Hotel on Main Street. I’m going to let you tell me what building is in the foreground, because I’m not sure. Here are some clues, though.

Criss Cross Cafe?

This photo, shot from a little more to the east shows a tantalizing amount of info. There’s a Pepsi sign advertising what looks like Criss or Cris Cross Cafe on the side of the building.

Like the movie Blowup

A 1966 British movie about a photographer who photographed what might have been a murder scene came to mind here. The photographer took the negative into the darkroom and made increasingly larger blowups of it trying to figure out if he really saw what he thought he saw. Of course, the bigger the enlargement, the more the image degrades, and the less sure he was.

Playing the British photographer, I blew up just a portion of the frame above, enhanced the contrast and applied some sharpening filters to bring out maximum detail. That provided a few more hints.

Clues to the location

There is a street sign that looks like it says Broadway.
There’s a Rt. 34 marker
There’s a Conoco Station sign.
There’s a three-story building with a doorway on the corner. It looks like it might be Finney’s Rexall Drug Store.
There’s some kind of parking, maybe for a hotel and / or cafe.

Did Subway shop replaced Finney’s?

This October 2009 photo looks like a Subway shop may have replaced Finney’s. A Google Earth aerial of the intersection shows a vacant lot at the northwest corner of Sprigg and Broadway today. That might mean that these workers razed the whole building, or it might have been taken down later.

Any idea what was in the building being torn down?

Radioactive Teenage Girls

Ken Steinhoff — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:48:54 +0000

When I first ran across the photos of this giggle of girls in front of the Arena Building, I thought they might be refugees from some kind of band camp. One girl is strumming on a guitar, there’s at least one other guitar case there, and another girl has what appears to be a ukulele under her arm.

Ouija Boards and sleeping bags

Then I noticed a Careers board game, a Ouija Board, sleeping bags, canteens and other camping paraphernalia.

Is this a Girl Scout campout?

If it is, they certainly don’t travel light. They appear to be a thirsty bunch, too. I see canteens of various shapes, thermos bottles, an insulated jug and a pitcher. Those square boxes look like they might contain beauty aids. Or ham sandwiches.

Headed INTO the Arena Building

They weren’t meeting in front of the Arena Building to go somewhere, they were headed INTO the building. That’s interesting. If you have really sharp eyes, you can see a Civil Defense triangle on a box on the table at the top of the stairs. Maybe that’ll provide a clue to what’s going on.

What is that on her head?

There is some kind of signing up going on here. I covered lots of Boy and Girl Scout events, but I don’t every recall running into the ceremonial or protective headgear the girl at the table is wearing.

Elaborate forms to fill out

The forms these girls are holding look more formidable than the ones we face on April 15 every year. What ARE they up to?

Civil Defense and National Security

Then, I finally found the two frames that made it all clear. Notice the small box with the Civil Defense triangle on it the man is holding? It’s a Geiger Counter.

You have to remember that this was at the confluence of The Red Scare and the Dawn of Rock and Roll, you know, Devil’s Music.

The girls were suspected of being Radio Active

Some busybody neighbor must have heard these girls listening to rock n roll on the radio and passed the word to the local Civil Defense office. The message got garbled at each stage along the way until it finally read, “Scores of teenage girls in Cape Girardeau are radioactive.”

The next thing you know, buses were dispatched to snatch the girls and quarantine them in the Arena Building until they could be screened with Geiger Counters.

That’s my theory and I’m sticking to until someone can come up with a better one.

Kool-Aid 3¢ (Buy 2, Get One)

Ken Steinhoff — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:23:59 +0000

There was a Missourian story about Samantha and William Gardner in the Sept. 5, 2010, paper. The youngsters sold vegetables they grew in a garden and proceeds from a lemonade stand to donate $113.07 to FISH, a Cape Girardeau food pantry.

Kool-Aid stands a Cape tradition

Samantha and William were carrying on the old Cape tradition of setting up a card table in front of your house where you would sell lemonade, Kool-Aid or home-grown produce.

That’s my old 1959 Buick LaSabre station wagon up there. Looks like I must have cruised by the kids, figured that I’d better grab a piece of wild art while I could, and put the land yacht in whoa-back.

Ways for kids to make money

These kids showed a real knack for business. Their sign, with a smiling Kool-Aid pitcher, touted Ice Cold Kool-Aid (they even got the trademark spelled right, with a hyphen) for 3 cents. “If you buy two, you get one free.”

Another sure-fire way to make money in those days was to scrounge the side of the road for soda bottles at two cents apiece. I’d have a lot fewer flats if they’re bring back bottle deposits (especially on beer bottles).

The house in the background looks familiar, but I can’t place what street it’s on, nor can I identify the entrepreneurs.

Colonial Restaurant Crash

Ken Steinhoff — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:49:48 +0000

Some photos are more interesting because of the background than the subject. I noticed the Colonial Restaurant in these photos of a crash at Kingshighway and Broadway. I always think of the establishment as being the Colonial TAVERN, but the name must have changed sometime toward the end of the 1950s, based on newspaper stories.

Sports car plows into building

I couldn’t find any newspaper stories about the wreck, nor do I know when the pictures were taken. The car doesn’t look like it sustained much damage. It doesn’t have the typical dimples in the windshield caused by an unbelted driver.

Cape police and a state trooper

I count at least six police officers and a State Trooper working the wreck. It must have been a slow, if cold, night

One of the first lessons I learned as a news photographer that everything goes smoothly until you get one more cop on the scene than they need to work the incident. He looks around and decides that his job is to hassle the photographer. These guys must not have hit that point, because I don’t remember any conflicts.

Colonial Restaurant being remodeled

It looks like the building was being remodeled. There’s fresh lumber and framing visible, and the car knocked down one of the temporary supports.

In 1936, Albert Haman and Harley Estes spoke in favor of incorporating an area west of the city limits, as the first step in bringing the area into the Cape Girardeau city limits. Haman owned a restaurant at the intersection of Cape Rock Dr. and Highway 61. Estes represented the Simpson Oil Co., which owns the Colonial Tavern. There are five gasoline stations in the area, but no schools or churches.

Missourian advocates expanding city

A Missourian editorial in 1946 advocated extending the city limits to take in the entire stretch of Hwy 61 to enable the city to zone the property and “thus prevent it from becoming covered with undesirable structures….Pigpens and beer joints … have long infested the Alvarado-Colonial Tavern intersection…. Unless this is done Hwy 61 from the southern city limits to the northern limits may be expected to become a hodgepodge of shacks and dumps…”

Coroner Don Kremer

Coroner Don Kremer is the fellow next to the car. In addition to being the coroner, he was also a commercial photographer who made a sideline of shooting wrecks for insurance companies, so his presence doesn’t necessarily mean this was a fatality.

Kremer made the news himself in 1970, when he gunned down a young woman, then committed suicide by driving into a bridge abutment at high speed. (If you follow the link, you’ll have to zoom out and turn your head sideways to read the story. Google has the microfilm rotated to the left.) Investigators say that tire tracks indicated that he aimed his car so that the driver’s side would take the brunt of the impact.

Kremer’s wife said that he had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and had been given two months to live.

1967 Cape Student Protest

Ken Steinhoff — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:33:01 +0000

Southeast Missouri State College wasn’t exactly a hotbed of political activism when I was there. You didn’t often see students carrying protest signs, particularly on Broadway.

I imagine Editor John Blue looked out his office window on the second floor of The Missourian, saw these young hooligans walking with picket signs in front of the Petit N’ Orleans restaurant, and immediately dispatched his Campus Correspondent (Yours Truly) to find out what the firebrands were up to.

Pickets: N’ Orleans not fair

Despite my riveting art, The Missourian didn’t run any photos. The story of the N’ Orleans Protest ran on Page 3 of the April 8, 1967, paper, below the fold with a one-column headline:

Pickets Claim

N’ Orleans Not

Fair to Some

The story said that “at one time, eight persons marched with signs bearing such slogans as ‘Students Have Rights,’ and ‘Faculty, Support Your Students.’

“However, the number in the line was reduced to three after a Cape Girardeau police officer arrived and talked to the picketers. He explained that more than three pickets constitutes unlawful assembly.”

Owner alleges students were unshaven

“Richard H. Barnhouse, proprietor of the restaurant, said that some students had been refused service because they were not properly dressed and were unshaven.

“The students who marched in the picket line Friday, though, were nearly dressed with coats and ties and were clean shaven.”

I don’t know if it’ll reproduce on the screen, but one of the signs read, “I’m a Veteran and twenty-four. Because I’m a Student, You shut the door.”

N’ Orleans in 2009

The restaurant was involved in some sort of controversy and was closed, I think, when I shot it in the fall of 2009. I didn’t pay much attention, because it wasn’t one of my hangouts. I don’t recall ever eating there.

Pi Kappa Alpha’s Fire Truck

Ken Steinhoff — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:15:15 +0000

The question is, how many guys does it take to look at a fraternity fire truck? I thought that maybe it was coming in for the Free Safety Check promised by the sign, but some of the other photos make it look like the truck might have had an owie.

Goodyear service?

I don’t recognize the store, but “Larry” has a Goodyear patch above his left pocket. Looks like the front bumper might have needed straightening. There’s a television shop and an ice center next door. Anyone have any idea where this was? I wonder how much the $1.19 brake special would cost today?

Why are Pike fire trucks red?

This is the explanation I found: because a fire truck has a driver; a driver has a foot; a foot has 12 inches; 12 inches is a ruler; a ruler was Queen Mary; Queen Mary was a ship; a ship sails the seas; the seas have fish; the fish have fins; the Finns fought the Russians, and the Russians are Red, so, therefore, a firetruck must be red.

Glad I could clear that up.

I’m not sure when these photos were taken. My guess is 1967. You don’t see the front Pike license tag on a photo of the the fire truck in the 1966 Homecoming Parade.

Rueseler Chevrolet 1966

Ken Steinhoff — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:47:55 +0000

I shot these photos of Rueseler’s Motor Company, better known as Rueseler’s Chevrolet, in the summer of 1966. The signature cowboy with blazing six-guns reminds me of the iconic Bunny Bread mascot.

Chevrolet dealer at night

I shot some of the photos in the daytime, then went back at dusk to try to get the signature cowboy to show up. My attempt was only marginally successful.

“Trusty Chevy II,” “Sporty Corvair”

The building looks new, so the photos could have been taken for an ad or a business column. I thought it would be easy to find stories about Rueseler’s, but a couple of ads were the only thing to pop up in the Google archives. This July 1966 Missourian advertisement tried to entice you buy a “sporty Corvair.” Those are two words I’m not sure I’d use together.

How do you like the Eggimann’s offer to sell you an air conditioner for $3.00 a week?

Blazing Chevrolet deals

I’m not sure what’s in the building on Kingshighway these days. I’ll have to check it out when I go back to Cape in October for Mother’s Birthday Season.

Castor River Bridge

Ken Steinhoff — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:13:55 +0000

Some of the boys jumping off the Castor River bridge on a hot summer day in 1964 clearly think they are Number One.

I probably shot these for The Jackson Pioneer. The film sleeve is dated 7/31 + 8/1/67 and has some photos of a swim meet on it, so I must have shot one assignment on one day for The Pioneer and then did a freelance job for The Missourian on the next.

She’s at least 40 feet above the water

If you figure the boy in the photo in front of the car is five feet and change tall, she has to be at least 25 feet above the bridge deck; the bridge deck, in turn, is at least 12 or 15 feet above the water. That’s an impressive height.

Getting up there is a challenge

The negative sleeve says the photos were taken at Castor River. As best as I can recall, that that was west of Jackson, near Millersville, on Rt. 72. If I’m wrong, please correct me.

Child endangerment?

How old IS that kid? He doesn’t even look like he’s a teenager. Can you imagine what would happen if somebody would see that today?

Picnic lunch in the shade

The older folks are busy cooking up a picnic lunch in the shade while the kids are jumping 40 feet off the top of a bridge over a two-lane highway.

Boys AND girls equal risk-takers

I don’t think that many Cape kids went there. It seemed more of a Jackson hangout.

Less risky frolicking

Not everybody was doing high-rise diving. Some were content to splash around in the shallows.

Did YOU ever dive off the bridge?

I was happy watching the other folks. I’ve gone off the high dive at the Capaha Park pool, but I’m not sure I’d want to dive off a bridge, even at deck level, if nobody’s chasing me.

SEMO Football Trampoline and Mascots

Ken Steinhoff — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 03:50:49 +0000

When I did a piece on Griff’s Burger Bar the other day, some folks reminisced a trampoline place in Cape. About the same time as that, I happened across these two frames shot at a SEMO football practice.

I don’t know if the trampolines were set up for the football players or if they were for something else.

Is that trampoline safe?

The supports and springs on that trampoline don’t look like they’d hold up the weight of the football players we see today. Maybe the SEMO Indians in those politically incorrect days were skinnier than the current crop.

Chief Sagamore turned into Rowdy Redhawk

Wife Lila was confused by my “politically incorrect” comment. In an attempt to be more sensitive to Native Americans, the university changed its mascot from Indians/Otahkians to Redhawks; the university newspaper dropped “Capaha” from its name and is now known as simply The Arrow.

Chief Sagamore, shown here in front of the Marquette Hotel during the 1966 Homecoming Parade down Broadway, has been replaced by Rowdy Redhawk.

Chief Sagamore moved to Chaonia Landing Resort

The local NPR station, KRCU, has a great feature called Almost Yesterday. It mentioned that there was a 22-foot fiberglass statue of an Indian Chief at the top of Houck Stadium. The statue originally graced the War Drum Resturaunt in Sikeston (which briefly became the location of the second Lambert’s Resturaunt (“Home of Throwed Rolls)). I’m not sure I have any photos of the Chief.

When “Indians” became taboo, Chief Sagamore was exiled to storage. He was later sold to the owners of the Chaonia Landing Resort at Lake Wappapello, where he was lifted to the top of the lookout above the resort.

Cape Salvation Army

Ken Steinhoff — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:52:56 +0000

After I published the photograph of Dutch sitting in front of the old Farmers and Merchants Bank, I got a message from Toni Eftink, projects manager of Old Town Cape.

“I guess the bank is gone though, right? I can’t seem to picture anything w/huge columns like that at Good Hope & Sprigg now. When did it go?”

Bank History

The bank was incorporated in 1904 and moved to the two-story red brick structure at 701 Good Hope in 1923. It was the oldest operating banking facility in Cape Girardeau.

That bank, located in the Haarig business district, catered to the early German-Americans who settled in the Good Hope area. It was expanded in 1936, and a drive-in window was added (depending on which story you read) in 1956 or 1970. It was sold to Boatmen’s Bank in 1982. Boatmen’s Bank became Nation’s Bank, which became Bank of America.

Boatmen’s Bank gave it to the Salvation Army

Major structural problems were discovered in the Salvation Army’s headquarter building at 215 Broadway in the spring of 1985.

About the same time, a Missourian story quoted James P. Limbaugh, vice president, as saying that the Cape’s western migration had taken the bank’s customer base with it. The bank was using only about 25 percent of the building’s 13,000 square feet. It had already been downgraded to a branch office when a new main facility was built on William St. in the early 70s.

Landmark Cape bank gets new life

Limbaugh said the facility needed a new roof and some other “fairly major improvements,” but “structurally it’s a good building.” He said there is an “emotional and sentimental attraction to the building” and that bank officials are happy that the structure can be put to good use.

For their part, the Salvation Army was ecstatic: “That’s a tremendous gift, something almost beyond words,” a community relations director in St. Louis said.

Farmers and Merchants razed in 1995

Not long after the Salvation Army moved into the bank, it started beating the drum to build a new facility on the property. The organization complained that the building didn’t meet its needs – only about 4,200 square feet of the 13,000 square feet were usable, compared to a new building with 17,200 feet of space. Despite the opposition of local historic groups, the bank was razed in 1995.

Salvation Army HQ at 701 Good Hope

The massive bank building that anchored a major corner in the Haarig District for more than six decades is now a parking lot and what you see above. I have a lot of respect for the work the Salvation Army does, but I sure miss seeing the Farmers and Merchants Bank when I drive down that block.