Photos around Cape Archives

January 23, 2015

Old Marble Hill School

When I was in Marble Hill in 2013 to shoot the artesian well we used to stop at on the way to Camp Lewallen, I noticed that the old Mable Hill School had been boarded up.

The room and exterior walls look like they are in good shape. I don’t know when the building stopped being used.

Built by the WPA

An inscription on the over the front door says that it was erected 1939-40 by Work Projects Admn, another one of those stimulus programs that helped employee workers during the Depression and created so many buildings still in use today.

On November 17, 1933, the school board purchased a new piano for the school.
A December 12, 1935, story reported that 29 pupils were enrolled in the school.
A January 17, 1940, Missourian brief said that classes for the Marble Hill grade school would be held at the old Will Mayfield College administration building because the old building is being razed for a new building.
Third grader Jimmy Smith, 8, who had been in a polio isolation ward at St. Francis Hospital was improved enough that he could see his parents. He became ill Tuesday and he was admitted to the hospital on Thursday. His left leg was affected by paralysis.
Fifteen pupils were graduated from the eighth grade of Marble Hill Grade School in May of 1956.
In 1957, about 60 members of the seventh and eighth grade were taken by bus for a skating party at the Jackson roller rink.

January 22, 2015January 22, 2015

Campbell Mattress Company

I was really looking for the Sani-Cream / Henny Penny building on a Halloween afternoon in 2009. It was just a coincidence I knocked off a couple frames of the Campbell Mattress Company at 3 South Hanover.

I didn’t realize the mattress company had been in business since 1933.

History of Campbell Mattress

Here are just a few of the stories from The Missourian:

May 28, 1935 – Fire destroyed Campbell Mattress Manufacturing Co. plant at 29 South Spanish. Fire was caused by burning bales of mattress cotton.
March 24, 1937 – A foundation wall gave way at the Campbell Mattress Co., 6 South Hanover street. “Four Negroes working in a ditch being dug for a sewer heard the crumbling of the brick wall and scrambled to safety. The ditch was being dug by A.E. Birk, a plumbing contractor.”
December 31, 1941 – Campbell Mattress was one of Cape’s leading manufacturing plants during the year. The shoe factory was the largest employer, with 1200 to 1400 workers.
December 7, 1955 – Common Pleas Judge J. Henry Caruthers, who served on the bench longer than any of his predecessors in the 104-year history of the court, died December 6, 1955. He and his brother, W.P. Caruthers, established the Missouri Mattress Manufacturing Co. before selling it to W.T. Ruff and Lee James. The Campbell Mattress Co. at 6 South Hanover is a successor to the original factory, and occupies the building erected by Judge Caruthers and his brother.
September 30, 1987 – Manuel G. Campbell, 79, died September 29, 1987. He owned and operated Campbell Mattress Co. from 1933 until 1983, when he sold the business and retired.
March 18, 1994 – Sprinkler system prevents serious blaze at mattress company.
August 5, 2000 – Fire at Campbell Mattress Co. warehouse at 100 Minnesota St. caused estimated $375,000 damage.
July 9, 2002 – Campbell Mattress Co. lands deal to provide mattresses for the Chicago Bears football team’s summer training facility. Owner Norman Wood wouldn’t say how many mattresses were ordered, but “they’re all king-size.”

January 14, 2015

Capaha Park Reunion

It may look strange that I pick this time of year to run photos of people frolicking in Capaha Park, but I’m editing a commemorative booklet on the Nettie Hopper Spicer Family Reunion that took place over the Fourth of July holiday in 2014.

The folks going through strange contortions are playing catch with water-filled balloons. They include Latisha McCray, Hannah Sterling, Diane Taylor, Sean Mason, Alyssa Nunley, Haley Conner, Jennette Haley Jenkins, Pat Young and Zipporah Jenkins.

Photo gallery of water balloon toss

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

January 11, 2015

Frisch’s Big Boy

Terry Hopkins‘ dad’s General Sign Company box of photos had these shots of Frisch’s Big Boy’s 3-D rotating sign. (Check out the Garber’s sign in the background.) I guess I never looked closely enough at a Big Boy to notice that he had a slingshot in his back pocket.

When I was a kid, I wondered how those rotating signs kept the electrical cord from getting tangled up. It’s obvious from this that the motor that provided the spin was BENEATH the rotating point.

BUT, how about signs that had lights in the rotating part? Did they get their power from contacts that slipped as they rotated? I’m sure someone is going to come up with an answer that is going to make me feel really foolish. (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)

Did Cape have a Frisch’s?

The building has General Sign Company on it, but the Big Boy is going for a ride in a truck that says Operle Poster Advertising, Paducah, KY, on its side.

I wonder if the Big Boy was headed for Kentucky? I don’t recall any Frisch’s stores in our area.