1993 Flood – Red Star

Aerial 1993 FloodIt’s pretty easy to tell Wet Cape from Dry Cape during the 1993 flood. This aerial photo shows the Red Star District looking south from about 4th Street. The city’s floodwall is barely keeping the Mississippi River out of the town. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Buyout left green spaces

Red Star looking south to Isle Casino Cape Girardeau siteThis 2011 aerial shows a lot of empty green spaces left after many residents took buyouts to keep from going through this again. This is looking south from just below Johnson Street. The photo was taken just as clearing for the Casino was beginning.

2011 Red Star looking west

Aerial photo of Cape Girardeau Sand Co and Red Star District 04-17-2011This aerial showing the Cape Girardeau Sand Company and what is left of the Red Star District was taken April 17, 2011. The concrete pad at the left of the photo is what we used to call Honker’s Boat Dock. To the left of Sloan Creek is the area that is being cleared for the Isle Casino Cape Girardeau. The light-colored building at the top center is the Show-Me Center.

Rerun: Shoe Factory to Casino

Shoe Factory in early 70sI asked the folks in the Growing Up in Cape Girardeau Facebook fanpage what they’d like me to repost. There were lots of requests for stuff either before or after my time – it’s hard to believe that my photo window in Cape was only from about 1963 through 1967. Several people asked for shoe factory photos. Unfortunately, I never was inside the building. The best I can do is a collection of ground and aerial photos documenting the transition of the biggest business in Cape to a casino.

This aerial photo was taken in the early 1970s. It ran in one of the most extensive posts I did dealing with the history of the shoe factory. If you follow only one link, it should be this one. By the way, you can click on the photos to make them larger, but following the links will take you to more pictures and the backstories.

Reporters love stats

Reporters love stories with lots of statistics, and a 1925 Missourian story was full of them: the factory produced 3,164,080 pairs of shoes, enough to provide every resident of Cape with 175 pairs.

There was a human side, too. The company bragged that “no death or accident of serious consequence has been recorded…”

I’m not sure if the shoe company would qualify this as an injury of “serious consequence, but I’m sure Mrs. McCrite would:

June 24, 1926  The condition of Mrs. Octavia McCrite, who is in the Cape Girardeau hospital following the loss of her scalp in an accident at the factory of the International Shoe Co. Saturday, was today reported to be unchanged.

If you read the comments, Mrs. McCrite was the grandmother of one of my readers. It sounds like it must have been an horrific injury with lifelong consequences.

A view from the tracks

Shoe Factory looking south from Sloan Creek 06-19-1967Here’s a view of the shoe factory from the Red Star side of the floodwall. The river was coming up, but never got high enough to have to close the floodgate. [If you are short on time, this is a link you can skip. The picture is pretty much the story.]

 Shoe factory neighborhood

Shoe Factory crash on Main StreetHere’s a wreck on Main Street at the shoe factory. The piece has pictures of buildings in the neighborhood, including one that became various things: Fairway Market No. 2, Margarite Mama’s and the Mule Lip.

Aerial photos of Red Star and Casino area

Red Star looking south to Isle Casino Cape Girardeau siteI shot a series of aerial photos of the old shoe factory site and surrounding area just as clearing was beginning. This one showed Red Star looking to the south.

Morrison Ice and Fuel

BNSF Conductor Randy Graviett in caboose in Cape Girardeau 04-05-2010A nondescript brick building south of the old shoe factory had been Morrison Ice and Fuel. It had the corner on the ice market in the early 1900s. It eventually became the Pure Ice Company.

When refrigerators first started coming out, Pure Ice sold Coolerator Iceboxes, but marketed them as a replacement for the old-fashioned wooden iceboxes (with a $5 trade-in), not as a refrigerator like we think of it today. Home ice delivery went on in Cape until the 1960s. That’s why a lot of people still call the fridge an “icebox.”

 2011 and 2012 casino panoramas

Panorama of Isle Casino Cape Girardeau construction and Main StreetI took panoramic photos of the casino to compare the changes between 2011, when it was mostly just a slab, and a year later.

Casino at night in 2012

Isle Casino Cape Girardeau at night 11-10-2012After the casino opened, I took some night time exposures of it.

Downtown parking vs casino parking

Aerial Isle Cape Girardeau Casino 08-13-2014Aerials showing the number of cars downtown and at the casino.

Bingo is still thriving

Bingo World 07-08-2013In 2010, Bingo folks were concerned that the casino would cut into their business. It doesn’t look like their parking lot is empty.

Hirsch’s Northtown

Margarita Mama's 10-20-2009My post on the building across from the shoe factory that eventually became The Mule Lip was short, but it drew lots of comments from people who went there in its various permutations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parking Downtown and at Casino

Aerial Isle Cape Girardeau Casino 08-13-2014You wouldn’t have had to fight for parking at noon-thirty on Wednesday August 13 when Ernie Chiles and I flew over the Isle Cape Girardeau Casino.

I didn’t look at it under a magnifying glass, but I DID blow it up a bit on the screen to let me count about 244 cars, two buses and what might be an RV in the parking lots. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Here are some earlier posts about the casino and shoe factory area.

Downtown parking

Aerial Downtown Cape 08-13-2014I looked at a series of frames that showed the downtown shopping area parking lots from the city lot south of Independence to the two lots north of Broadway, plus Water Street and east of Spanish Street. The photos were taken on the same pass, just minutes before the Casino photo. I counted about 210 vehicles ion the downtown shopping district.

[I cheated a bit. Because of the angle, I couldn’t see cars parked on the east side of Main, so I doubled the number of cars parked on the west side, assuming that the same number of parking spaces were occupied on that side.]

(Sorry for the cloud shadows at the top left. I tried get Ernie to lasso them and drag them out of the way, but he said that kind of thing was out of his pay grade.

It would be interesting to know how many of the cars in both locations were owned by employees rather than customers.

Other downtown aerials

‘BINGO!’ ‘Oh, BLEEP!’

Bingo World 07-08-2013Someone asked a foreign visitor what he had done the night before. “I played BINGO OH BLEEP,” he replied.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a game where a man reads off a bunch of letters and number until one person yells, “BINGO!” and everybody else shouts, “Oh, BLEEP!”

That’s what I was thinking about when we cut through Fairmont cemetery after cruising through New Lorimier. As soon as we crested the hill, we couldn’t believe how many cars were parked at Bingo World. The lot perimeter was parked two deep and the street in front had cars parked for at least a block in each direction. More cars were pulling in all the time.

In 2010, the Bingo folks were concerned that the new Isle Cape Girardeau Casino would siphon off their business. Looks to me they’re holding their own.

How’s the casino doing?

Isle Casino Cape Girardeau 07-08-2013We decided to swing by the Casino to see what its parking lot looked like. The Missourian had a June 12, 2013, story that said that attendance had dropped off sharply – 42% – in May from a peak of 123,000 in March. Not only was attendance down, but the average stay per patron was shorter.

The parking lot in front of the main entrance sure had a lot of empty spots.

Look to the left

Isle Casino Cape Girardeau 07-08-2013They have  huge parking lot, so maybe I didn’t capture the part where the cars parked. Here’s a view to the north lot area. Not exactly packed.

Look to the right

Isle Casino Cape Girardeau 07-08-2013How about to the right? There were a few more cars on the south side. And, to be fair, I counted about 13 cars to the right of the frame in another photo.

Still, I have to ask myself, how many of those belong to employees? I would bet it takes a whole lot more people to staff a casino than a bingo hall.

I wonder if we can get the shoe factory back?

 Earlier Casino / Shoe Factory stories