Ken Steinhoff, Author at Cape Girardeau History and Photos

April 29, 2015

Rendville’s Hanging Tree

In my Ohio days, I spent a lot of time documenting dying coal towns. Rendville was one of them. It was one of the few town that had a sizable black population, partially because William P. Rend, a Chicago businessman who operated a coal mine there, paid black and white workers the same wages.

Click on the photos to make them larger. The black and white photos are square because I shot them with a 2-1/4 x 2-1/4 camera instead of my usual 35mm Nikon. I rarely used that format because it didn’t “feel” right to me.

Strange message on building

I never have been able to figure out this cryptic message on the side of a building means. “HOWE – West Virginia monkey with a white cap on. What’s he going to do when Halloween comes.” was what it said.

Ohio’s smallest town

A 2011 Columbus Dispatch story said that Rendville, population 36, was the smallest village in Ohio. During the 1880s’ boom days, the population was about 300 “coloreds” and about 1,500 whites. The town averaged one bar for every 25 residents.

By the 1890s, the mines were starting to go bust and the village was down to about 225 families, and they needed assistance from the state for food. In 1901, a fire wiped out sixteen buildings, including the town hall, at least one store and a Baptist church.

There was a brief economic uptick during World War I, but the depression hit Rendville hard. By the 1940s, the town boasted only two stores, one bar, a post office and a few over 100 hundred homes.

City Hall and hanging tree

I haven’t seen any printed references to the Rendville hanging tree, but three people within an hour made reference to it. It’s the tree to the left of the City Hall in this photo taken this month.

One man said it would be logical because the jail used to be located right behind city hall. Read this Rendville’s cemetery mystery to get a sense of what a small town it is.

Jackson’s hanging tree

Cape Girardeau County had a hanging tree behind the Jackson courthouse.

History of Cape county’s hanging tree
Tree was still alive in 2014 (but I haven’t checked to see how it made out last winter).

April 28, 2015December 19, 2021

Ever Use a Two-Holer?

Curator Jessica and I were exploring a huge abandoned brick school house on a hill overlooking Rendville, Ohio, when a couple said they knew of a building they thought was an old one-room schoolhouse. They’d show it to us if we didn’t mind them tagging along. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Definitely a school

Indeed, the nondescript building could have been just about anything from the outside, but once we looked inside, it was definitely a school. It had the chair rail around the walls that went below the blackboards. A long-gone central stove supplied heat, and there was the remains of an old piano against one wall.

Piano left behind

Time hasn’t been kind to the old piano.

Back before good roads and consolidation, the hills were full of small churches and schools because it was hard to get out of the hills and hollows of Southeast Ohio. On top of that, a lot of the towns were company towns where miners were paid in scrip which could only be redeemed at the company store. That discouraged workers from traveling.

Water came from cistern

Water came from a cistern that was located on the side of the school.

About 50 feet behind the school was a small building that was leaning at about a 45-degree angle.

Two two-holers behind school

Through the open door, we could see that it was a two-holer designed for urgent needs, no waiting. The hole on the right may have rotted away, or it may have been destroyed by wild animals who like the salt that soaks into the wood.

Figuring that unisex facilities probably weren’t common in the era when this school was operating, we looked around. Sure enough, about 50 or 75 feet away was another set of seats. The building was gone, but the seat remained.

April 27, 2015

Vinton County Padiddle

Curator Jessica and I had been roaming around in SE Ohio’s Vinton county looking at iron furnaces, cemeteries, the haunted Moonville Railroad tunnel (I’m getting around to that) and sunsets.

Just as I was pulling up to the main road, my headlights lit up a stop sign, much like one I photographed on Water Street. (Click on the photo to make it larger.)

Padiddle

Just then, I noticed a padiddle – a car with one headlight out – coming around the bend. I know all about padiddles because my Road Warriorette asked me if I had ever played the game after she spotted a one-eyed 18-wheeler on our road trip last fall.

Not being up on what games youngsters are playing, I hit Google for an explanation. I was enlightened by the Urban Dictionary: A game in which you look for cars with headlight or foglight out (padiddle) [also spelled pididdle] or tail light (pedunk) and call it out. When someone correctly calls a padidle or pedunk, all members of the opposite sex present must remove an article of clothing.
Example: Padiddle! You have to take off your shirts.

“Are you getting too sleepy to drive?”

Right after I declared “PADIDDLE” and waited expectantly for something exciting to happen, Miz Jessica said, “Ken, if you are getting sleepy, I can drive us back to Athens.”

“What do you mean ‘if I’m getting sleepy?’ I’m fine.”

“I figured you must be sleeping, because if you expect me to play by Urban Dictionary rules, then you have to be dreaming.”

Well, you can’t blame somebody for trying. I mean, what’s the use of doing research if you can’t put your knowledge to good use?

April 26, 2015

The REAL Dutchtown Tavern

Back on April 4, I did a post on a foundation down in Blomeyer that I thought was the Dutchtown Tavern. I hedged my bets by putting a question mark in the headline. Some readers had memories of the tavern, but at least one of them thought it was at the base of the high hill in Dutchtown proper, not across from the Montgomery Drive-In.

Saturday afternoon, I stopped in at that building, which now sports a sign that reads “Dutchtown Used Furniture.” Painted on the side is a Coca Cola ad and a sign that says, “Slaughter’s Stor.”

Click on the photos to make them larger.

Don and Cathy Heuring own the place

Don and Cathy Heuring established the Dutchtown Used Furniture Store in 2004. The building, which is more than a hundred years old, they said, was the Dutchtown Tavern until 1993, when it closed after owner Jim Slaughter died. His widow sold the place, and it served several different businesses until the Heurings took over.

Was tavern and liquor store

The Heurings said the bar was on this side of the archway, and the liquor store was on the other side.

I’m still a little confused. The previous story mentioned that Raymond John “Tiny” Ford owned and operated several regional bars and nightclubs, including Tiny’s Danceland, The Jamna, The Ozark Corral, Dutchtown Tavern, and Edgewater Bar. Mr. Ford died in 2002 at 85, so he may have been involved in the tavern business before Mr. Slaughter.

Can anyone clear that up?