Demolition Archives

October 22, 2011April 5, 2016

Can Jefferson Be Saved?

I ran photos and background on Jefferson School, Cape’s oldest standing school, in the spring of 2010. After I read a Scott Moyers Missourian story on Sept. 8, 2011, saying that the school was slated to be razed the next week, I figured it was all over for the building. On Sept. 21, though, Scott has a story saying the demolition had been postponed until an environmental assessment could be done.

One last look

I decided to take another look at the historic building, which was the last segregated black schoolhouse in town.

It wasn’t encouraging. When I walked back to the car, I told Mother, “It’s going to be a race between tearing it down and having it fall down. I can see through some of the upstairs windows that the roof has collapsed. The east wall has cracks and looks like it’s bulging out.”

Maybe it’s not that bad

I happened to be talking with a man whose family has built and restored masonry buildings in Cape for decades. He said that he took a look at the building about six months ago and didn’t share my impression that it couldn’t be salvaged. The cracks around and above the windows aren’t anything that can’t be fixed, he claimed.

“I can look at a wall and tell if it’s straight or not. If the bottom’s broken and sheared, there’s nothing you can do but work from the bottom to the top, but if it’s just cracks around the windows at the tops, you can tuckpoint them.” He said that the foundation stones and walls are in good shape.

Landmark or rubble?

Will someone with the will and cash to restore the building step in at the last minute? If the fellow I talked with is correct, it MIGHT be a building worth saving. I’d like to see a living building there the next time I come to town and not another lost landmark.

Jefferson School photo gallery

Here is a gallery of what I have to admit are some pretty disheartening photographs. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

October 20, 2011

Capaha Pool All Washed Up

OK, that’s a bad pun, considering that the Capaha Park Pool is nothing but grass and memories these days. This single frame of some guys washing down the Capaha Park Pool was in with some stuff dated 5/1966, so I’m assuming that they were getting ready to fill the pool for the summer season.

I asked Wife Lila, a former lifeguard, if she recognized the guys, but she couldn’t put names to faces. Terry, Jacqie, can you ID them?

Peeling Paint Photos

When Son Matt found the photo of Paul Lueders that ran earlier, he also stumbled across some of his frames of a subject I’ve been looking for. I’m going to see if anyone can remember where this mural existed. (Don’t cheat and look at the filenames.) You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

Horse-drawn fire engine?

It’s hard to tell with a lot of the pieces gone, but it looks like it might be a horse-drawn fire engine. The Dalmatian and the guy in a uniform (in the closeup at the top) send me in that direction.

I’m still looking for my film from this shoot. It’s gonna be in the bottom of the last box I pull out.

Other Cape murals

City Hall / Lorimier School

Dr. Herbert’s office (clown mural not shown, but talked about)

Lutheran Church mural on building that may be torn down to make parking lot.

Sharon Sanders Blog

I frequently send you over to look at Missourian photographer Fred Lynch’s blog, f/8 and Be There. Well, another Missourian writer has launched a blog: Sharon Sanders, the paper’s librarian. She just published a touching tribute to her father, who died at age 94. If you like my stuff, I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading her column. Rumor has it that it’s going to run on Thursdays. Leave her some comments so she feels appreciated. It’s lonely when you’re first starting out and you don’t get feedback.

I had lunch with a young staffer last time I was in Cape. My advice to her was, “get to know your librarian. She can make you look a lot smarter than you are, help you flesh out stories or even give you enough info to write one without heavy lifting on your part.” I never met a newspaper librarian who didn’t love to go digging in what we used to call “The Morgue” for you. I envy Fred for being able to turn to Sharon for help researching his photos.

June 26, 2011September 22, 2011

Capaha Pool: Erased

Wife Lila and I hadn’t been back to Capaha Park since the pool was razed. When we pulled into the loop, there was an audible gasp from the seat next to me.

The pool where she had been a lifeguard for 10 years had been erased. The city didn’t even have the tact to leave behind a reminder like the oval that had been the old pool in the background of the photo.

Fighting back tears, she said, “I don’t know how you can feel this way about something that’s not a person.”

Salvaged half a brick

There were a few brick fragments sticking out of the mud from last night’s rains. The first one I brought her was red, but neither of us could remember any red brick being used in the building. Later, Bill /Jacqie Jackson, Lila’s lifeguard colleague said that there was one course of red brick used as an accent in the pool building.

I’ll have to take his word for it. It must have been used in an interior wall, because I don’t see it in any of the photos I took just before the wreckers moved in.

I went back to retrieve a tan brick that was more like we both remembered.

Laurie scored brick and fence cap

Lila gave Jacqie her half-brick because Niece Laurie Everett, of Annie Laurie’s Antiques fame, scored her a whole brick and the cap off one of the fence posts while demolition was in progress.

Tag: Demolition