Ken Steinhoff, Author at Cape Girardeau History and Photos

February 22, 2014January 2, 2025

Missourian Picnic

This Missourian picnic was held August 12, 1967, right before I packed up to head to Athens, Ohio, for school. Since it wasn’t a paying assignment (and I was buying my own film), I shot the event with my half-frame camera that got two shots to every 35mm frame. That’s one of the reasons the quality is a little shaky.

This must have been a picnic for back shop production employees. I don’t recognize any editorial types lurking around and they have an uncanny ability to sniff out free food.

Picnic photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery. The Missourian’s production folks were like family because, in a lot of cases, they were. Unlike the newsroom which had lots of turnover with young folks paying their dues and moving on to bigger papers, the composing and press staffs were in for the long haul. I liked working with them and learned a lot that helped me at other papers.

February 21, 2014

Natatorium from the Air

This April 17, 2011, aerial shows just how close to the Natatorium the cement plant’s quarry has advanced over the years. The main section is at its maximum depth and the plant is starting to strip off the overburden on the north and west sides to expand in that direction.

The plant’s manager told me that he’s doing everything he can to keep from taking the tiny plot of ground the old indoor pool sits on. Click on the photo to make it larger.

Earlier Natatorium stories

February 21, 2014

When Men Wore Hats

I’ve worn baseball caps, cowboy hats, firefighter helmets, bike helmets and riot helmets, but I never had a traditional hat like this dandy in the 1934 Girardot is sporting.

My first thought in seeing the ad for Bohnsack’s – “A Clothing Store for Men and Boys” – was that the man with the hat and mustache was Clark Gable. It might have been Gable, but he didn’t REALLY become famous until Gone with the Wind, which hit the screen in 1939, long after the yearbook was published.

Bohnsack’s had become Sherman Ladies Fashions by 1968, and that address was listed as William Brothers’ Curtis Mathis TV, Linens and Gifts in the 1979 City Directory.

Other businesses on the page

Lueders Studio survived well into the 1990s, based on family photos we had taken there.
Suedekum & Sons has returned to its original roots as Meyer Supply company, but it’s still in the same place and it’s been serving the community for more than a century.
Finney’s Drug Store was still listed in the 1979 City Directory, but Google’s Street View shows it as an empty storefront today.

February 19, 2014

Girardot Poster Party

Nancy Jenkins (left), Ron Marshall and Marcia Maupin work on posters to help sell the 1965 Girardot in this much-scratched negative.

Nancy was Editor in Chief, Ron was Art and Literary Editor, and Marcia was on the Art Staff. The Marshall coat of arms on the wall leads me to believe the art extravaganza was taking place in Ron’s basement.

Teem bottle

There’s a Teem soda bottle on the table. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw one of those, so I turned to our old friend Google: Teem is a lemon-lime-flavored soft drink produced by The Pepsi-Cola Company. It was introduced in 1964 as Pepsi’s answer to 7 Up and Coca-Cola’s Sprite.

Teem was sold in the United States and Canada until 1984, when Lemon-Lime Slice was introduced, though it was still available at some soda fountains into the 1990s. Sierra Mist has since taken over the Teem role in the US.

Teem remains on sale today in Brazil, Uruguay, Honduras, South Africa and Pakistan; it survived into the 1990s in other markets too, before Pepsi authorized vendors to replace it with 7 Up.

Teem’s TV ad campaign in the early 1980s challenged viewers to “go ahead… build up that thirst until you can’t stand it any more…” (showing, for example, a disheveled old guy eating “two plain dry tacos” bought from a street vendor in the Southwest) “…then BLOW IT AWAY with TEEM.”