Cape Girardeau History and Photos
News photos that have grown whiskers and have become history
Photos taken in and around Cape Girardeau, MO
I wanted to get an updated photo of the dome of Academic Hall to contrast with the shiny copper dome I took in the spring of 2013. On my way down North Henderson on a drizzly afternoon, the cement plant popped up above the horizon.
As you can see, the trees around here are just starting to turn. I was afraid all the dry weather would cause the leaves to turn brown and fall off before we saw the neat colors.
I remember when yard sales first started happening 25 or 30 years ago. Mother and Wife Lila and I would spend weekends buying stuff that would eventually end up in a couple of our own sales.
This weekend, Mother and I hit a big estate sale, a tag sale and several yard sales (some of them more than once.) I’m not exactly sure what the difference is between tag sales and yard sales; they all acted the same to me.
We got some killer bargains: both of us needed new suitcases, a big one for me and a small one for her. We picked up two that looked like they may have made one trip from Phoenix to St. Louis. The blank warranty card was still in one. Cost? About $11 for both.
I have a big box of kid books for a few dollars that’ll keep the grandkids busy for a long time. The most immediately useful thing was a decent office chair for $5. It’s way better than the funeral home chair I had been using in the basement.
It didn’t dawn on me until we were headed out from the last sale with our arms full that I should have been shooting pictures. I don’t have many food pictures because I’m too busy eating to muck with the camera, and I was too busy shopping to shoot. Sorry.
What amazes me about yard sales is how many items are still in their original wrapping. Were the items given as gifts? Were they things bought by mistake? You have to wonder if the stuff was bought at another yard sale “because the prices was too good to pass up,” but never used.
What’s the best bargain you’ve run across at a yard sale? Do you think they are as good as they were years ago, or has all the good stuff been sold?
While cruising around, down and through Stoddard, Wayne and Bollinger counties looking for what was left of the Dark Cypress, I spotted a road sign that said ARAB – X Miles. (Of course, if you are from these parts, you pronounce it A-RAB.)
How could I not go to one of those interesting place names that Missouri has in abundance? When we got to the intersection of Highway 51, Highway C (which runs east to Advance) and Highway P (which runs west toward Lowndes and Greenville), we had arrived at downtown Arab, which consists of Arab Station.
Mother looked at the place a minute and said, “I’ve been here before. I met one of my friends here one morning. She said the deer hunters all come here for breakfast. We were disappointed that not many of them showed up that morning.”
I thought it was probably better that I not ask why Mother and her friend were stalking deer hunters in A-RAB.
Wikipedia, which references Paul Corbin’s Reflections from Missouri Mud, said the community was founded in 1908 and received its name from the city of Arab, Alabama.
When I looked up the Alabama town, Wikipedia said “The name of the town was an unintentional misspelling by the U.S. Postal Service in 1882 of the city’s intended name, taken from Arad Thompson, the son of the town founder and first postmaster Stephen Tuttle Thompson. Two other names for the town were sent to the Postal Service for consideration: “Ink” and “Bird.”
Mayme L. Hamlett’s Place Names of Six Southeast Counties of Missouri tells a slightly different story: “A post office established in 1908 in the eastern part of Jefferson Township by Jasper Cooper of Bollinger County, interested in a chain of stores. Later the Cooper Store was moved about three miles southwest to the present site of Arab where Peter Stilts and Grisham Mercantile Company had a store. Several names were sent to the post office authorities who accepted Arab; but what prompted its suggestion is not remembered. Marvin Clubb was the first postmaster.”
The Missouri Arab, Wikipedia added, “The community was probably initially founded for the purposes of postal delivery with the mail gathered twice a week from Zalma and delivered to Arab by horseback. Arab was originally located in Wayne County; in 1943, the post office and community were moved four miles away to extreme southern Bollinger County.
“In 2000 the population of Arab was 7, all members of the same family. Arab is home to the Arab Station, a convenience store that in addition to selling small selections of groceries and cigarettes and alcohol, also consists of a deli that serves pizza and a bait shop.”
Ernie Chiles and I were on a photo mission to shoot Cairo and the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers on August 13, 2014.. Our trip took us over Commerce on the way back. There are lots of open lots where homes and businesses used to be after the floods of 1973, 1993, and 2011 took their toll on the town.
When I did an earlier story on Commerce, I noted that the 2010 Census recorded a population of 67 in 30 households, down from 110 people in 42 households ten years earlier. I wonder how many will be left in 2020?
At least two homeowners tried to hold back the river with concrete floodwalls. I don’t know if they succeeded. Click on the photos to make them larger.