Photos around Cape Archives

December 4, 2014May 3, 2021

Yes, That IS a Camel

If you look off to the west as you motoring north of Fruitland, you are liable to see a tall neck sticking above a fence bordering the service road. THAT’S Miss C, a real, live camel.

Behind her are static camels, lions, sailors, soldiers, gargoyles, snakes, alligators and anything else that can be fashioned from concrete.

Concrete Castings of Fruitland

Concrete Castings is the brainchild of Clarence Lee Shirrell, who sold the business to his long-time employee Crista Meyer a few years back. He still maintains a presence, acting as tour guide or casting finisher-upper every time I’ve stopped by.

You name it, they’ve got it

There’s something for everyone. In addition to the camel and the concrete figures, there’s a petting zoo with peacocks, goats, chickens and other assorted beasts and birds.

Concrete Castings photo gallery

I shot these photos way back in 2013 and promptly forgot about them. My notes have long gone cold (that’s a fancy way of saying I misplaced them), so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Click on any image to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around.

December 1, 2014November 28, 2020

Cairo’s Railroad Bridge

You can find out more than you ever wanted to know about the railroad industry in general and the Cairo Railroad Bridge in particular at the Bridges & Tunnels website.

By the late 1800s, as many as 500,000 railroad cars a year were ferried across the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Bridging the rivers was hampered by the Civil War, economics, engineering challenges and the steamboat industry, which saw railroads as an attack on its livelihood.

Click on the photo to make it large enough to see Cairo on the right and Kentucky on the left . Just beyond the curve in the background is where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers join at Fort Defiance, the southernmost point in Illinois.

First bridge finished in 1889

The first Cairo Bridge was an engineering marvel. The 10,650-foot, 52-truss bridge was the longest steel bridge in the world at the time. The total length, including trestles was 3.875 miles.

On October 29, 1899, the first train, consisting of nine 75-ton Illinois Central Mogul engines, the heaviest ones in service on the line, inched across the span. After they made it across the Ohio River safely, the train reversed and picked up a tenth engine, and blasted across the bridge at full speed. The second train to cross was full of newspapermen. I’m surprised they weren’t the first test train.

The Ohio River and the railroad bridge are in the foreground. The blue-green bridge in the background is the I-57 bridge crossing the Mississippi River into Missouri.

Bridge needed replacing by mid-1940s

The website reported that a 6.6 earthquake in the New Madrid Sesmic Zone cracked a pier on the bridge in 1895, but repairs were made right away. A 1946 study showed quite a few dangerous deficiencies. Half a century of pounding by heavy loads had worn out key bars and rollers. An anemometer was installed and trains were prohibited from using the bridge when winds were high.

Work on a replacement that used some of the existing piers started in the summer of 1949; it was completed in May 1952.

This photo shows the east side of the bridge and the high levee that protects Cairo from the north.

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November 28, 2014May 3, 2021

Connie Crete Up Close

I’m not exactly sure what this man is doing, and I’m not sure I want to know. It was in the big box of prints and color slides General Sign Company had taken of signs and other stuff it had created from the 40s through at least the 1960s. Terry Hopkins, whose Dad worked there, said he didn’t know who the man was, but it wasn’t his dad. June 1964 was stamped on the cardboard slide mount.

Terry said General Sign made lots of fiberglass figures at the Kingshighway plant, including cows, BIG John, and Shoney’s little guys. I thought this gal looked familiar.

It was Connie Crete

A little deeper in the box was the answer: the girl was Connie Crete, perched high above Cape Ready Mix and down the street from Schneider Equipment Co. at Bloomfield Road and South Kingshighway.

Over the years, the concrete company would be known for the imaginative decorations its concrete trucks would sport. Dad said he bought concrete from Cape Ready Mix because he figured any company that was that creative and kept its trucks so clean probably also turned out a good product.

You can click on the photos to make them larger.

November 26, 2014

Wrestling and Gorgeous George

When I saw this sign in the treasure trove of General Sign photos Terry Hopkins‘ dad loaned me, I immediately thought of going to wrestling matches at Arena Park with Dad.

The funny thing about it was that I thought I had memories of seeing Gorgeous George wrestling there. The only problem with that is that he died in 1963 at the age of 48. His last fight in Cape was in 1955, I can’t see Dad taking me to a wresting match when I was eight.

Cape matches

A Gorgeous George fan tried to list every fight George Raymond Wagner (his real name until he changed it the day after Christmas in 1950). Here is a list of his Cape bouts:

May 4, 1953 – Cape Girardeau, MO Red Roberts(sub for Gorgeous George) vs. Lester Welch
November 26, 1954 – Cape Girardeau, MO Joe Tangero beat Gorgeous George in a 2 of 3 falls match
November 18, 1955 – Cape Girardeau, MO Dick Hutton beat Gorgeous George in a 2 of 3 falls match

Joined WWE Hall of Fame in 2010

The WWE website has some bio information:

Born in 1915, George Wagner grew up poor in Nebraska during the Great Depression and turned to professional wrestling as a way to earn a living. Early in his career, Wagner was a normal, clean-cut grappler like most of the competitors of the era. Due to his small stature and limited abilities in the ring, he experienced little success. Then he got an idea.

Seeing an opportunity to bring more entertainment to the world of professional wrestling, George Wagner became Gorgeous George, a snooty, platinum blonde villain who draped himself in lace and fur and entered the ring to the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance.” Accompanied by a manservant who sprayed the ring down with Chanel perfume, George would enrage the audience just by walking into an arena. When the official would attempt to check George for foreign objects, he would recoil and shout, “Get your filthy hands off of me!”

While this behavior may seem tame by today’s standards, it was unheard of in the 1940s. Needless to say, audiences ate it up and bought tickets just to hate him. At the same time, televisions were becoming a fixture of American households during the post-World War II economic boom and professional wrestling was what everyone was watching. With his over-the-top antics and self-proclaimed nicknames like “The Beautiful Bicep” and “The Sensation of the Nation,” Gorgeous George quickly became the biggest attraction on this new medium. By the end of the decade, the man who grew up poor was now the highest paid athlete in the world.

High school wrestling

I covered a Central High School wrestling match where mild-mannered Miss Helen Ketterer, let her wild out. It was a side I had never seen before.

You’re going to be shopping, right?

Everybody is all agog at the idea of getting up from the turkey table on Thanksgiving to fight the crowds for bargains. If you are more inclined to relax on the holiday and do your shopping on line, keep me in mind.
I encourage you to shop locally, but if you order from Amazon, click on the Big Red Button at the top left of the page (or this one) to get to Amazon. I’ll make about 6% on anything you purchase, and it won’t add a penny to your cost. There’s also a tiny yellow button that will allow you to make a donation to the site. You don’t even have to put a bow on it.

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving if we don’t get together before then.