April 2013

April 26, 2013

NOT the Pink Moon

While looking for photos to go with the Flood of 1943, I ran across these photos shot on the riverfront August 11, 2011. The moonrise isn’t pink like everybody is posting this week, but the sky certainly was. (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)

Train crews still wave

This toddler doesn’t quite know what to make of that loud thing going by, even if the crewman is giving him a friendly wave. I miss the old steam engines we had when I was a kid his age.

The shot these the evening the Duncan Kids from Kennett learned the venerable art of rock skipping. And, to show you how things remain the same, here’s a link to rock skippers in 1966.

April 26, 2013

Flood of 1943

The river is still rising at Cape. The crest was pushed back a day. They’re predicting it will hit 42 feet on Friday and stay there for about a day before going down fairly quickly. That got me digging for one of Dad’s scrapbooks where he had posted photos from the Flood of 1943, when the river crested at 42.4 feet in May of that year.

Was 1943 flood higher than 1844 flood?

Minutia is important in a small town. The December 8, 1943 Missourian had a fascinating debate about whether or not the Flood of 1943 beat out the Flood of 1844. The convoluted way it’s written signals to me that the reporter didn’t quite understand what he was writing about. Here is the account:

Some facts about high stages of the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau, including determination that the May 1943 mark was higher than the 1844 flood have been established. There was some contention shortly after the 1943 record flood that the water did not set a new mark.

1943 was 9/100ths of a foot higher

City Engineer John R. Walther and T.E. Bliss, division engineer for the Frisco Railroad, went into the matter on a mathematical basis recently and came to the conclusion that the 1943 flood was 9/100ths foot higher than the flood crest of July 4, 1984.

The engineers determined tht the 1844 mark was actually 42.31 feet for Cape Girardeau and that the high mark for May 1943 was 42.4 feet, which was the U.S. Engineers’ record.

Went looking for nail

Mr. Walther and Mr. Bliss checked the actual height of both a mark and a nail in the former Houck building at Independence and Main streets, which have long indicated the previous high crest, and found them to both show the 1844 mark to have been 42.31 feet.

River gauge established

This was arrived at from the city datum, which was established officially long ago for the purpose of fixing levels. It is officially described as being 50 feet below the high water mark of 1844, government records state. They city river gauge later was established through city ordinance. The gauge’s zero is 7.75 feet above the city datum.

The mark for 1844 was commonly known for some years as 42.5 feet, but the engineers say this was an approximation and was not correct. Until a few years ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had published the 1844 Cape Girardeau mark as 42.5. In more recent years, the government mark referred to in reports was the 1927 stage of 40.04 feet.

“This settles argument”

The engineers, when making the check on river marks, notched the 1943 peak for the water on an east wall of the Frisco passenger depot. The plan is to place a marker there, showing how high the record flood – set on May 27, 1943, actually was.

Referring to the engineering checks recently made by himself and Engineer Bliss, who also resides here, Engineer Walther said: “I believe this settles any argument about the 1943 stage of the river being a record.”

The Firestone building today

Well, not EXACTLY today: this photo was taken April 5, 2010. Even though the river is about at the same stage as it was in 1943, the floodwall is doing a good job of keeping Main Street dry.

Floodwall and downtown

This is the general area that flooded. Firestone was at the southwest corner of Main Street and Independence.

April 24, 2013

1964 Jackson Primary

The photos were taken in August 1964 in the Cape County Courthouse in Jackson. The sleeve says “Jackson Primary,” so the workers must have been counting ballots while the candidates chewed their fingernails. I would have been working at The Jackson Pioneer at the time. In the background are name plates that seem to read Rada Lou Kamp, Rusby C. Crites and Marie H. Bradford when I blew them up.

Covering elections fun, frustrating

Covering election night could produce some good images, unfortunately, the best pictures often didn’t run because they were of minor candidates or of relatively insignificant races. Photographers would be frustrated because they wasted a lot of time and editors were frustrated because they didn’t have key photos.

We finally came to a compromise at The Palm Beach Post. We would determine in advance what races we wanted to focus on, then reporters were responsible for finding out where the candidates were likely to be when the results came in. (The good old days when everybody gathered at election central had given away to elaborate parties.)

I played air traffic controller

Each photographer was given a master list of candidates he or she was responsible for covering, along with the size and shape of the photo that had been laid out in advance. (We could make a limited number of changes on the fly, but tight deadlines meant we had to stay to the script most of the time.)

I coordinated moving the shooters from place to place based on results that were being relayed to me from the newsroom. I also arranged for film to be picked up so the photographers wouldn’t have to come back to the office. We’d have been lost without two-way radios. I handled the logistics of getting the photos taken. Chief Photographer John Lopinot edited the film and saw that the pictures got in the paper. It wasn’t unusual that I would realize that I had juggled bodies all evening without seeing the results until the paper came off the press.

Wife Lila key player

Wife Lila was a staff favorite because she’d brew up a huge pot of her special chili to fuel the staff before they headed out to chase candidates. We joked that it was not only filling, but that about two hours into the evening, it would produce gas that would keep the TV crews from getting too close to you.