Cape Girardeau History and Photos

December 18, 2014December 19, 2014

Cuban Boatlift Part 1

Road Warriorette Jan and Son Matt nagged at me this morning to dig out some of my Cuban Boatlift photos to go along with the big news that President Obama was going to thaw the Cold War that had been going on since about 1959 or thereabouts.

I protested that I hadn’t even THOUGHT about dipping into my Florida years, but they were persuasive. After about nine boxes, I hit one containing outtakes from the month (minus one day) I spent in Key West watching a flood of people who would change the face of Florida and parts of the United States.

Palm Beach Post May 6

I’ll go into more detail and publish more photos after I’ve had a chance to see what I can find. To be honest, my stomach has been a bit iffy today, and I haven’t felt like spending time in front of the scanner.

We sent a team to Mariel Harbor

We sent photographer George Millener and reporter Edgar Sanchez down to Key West to try to talk their way onto a boat going over to pick up relatives. The word was that it didn’t take long to make the 180-mile round trip. They made a quick call saying they were getting ready to depart and that they’d check in as soon as they got back.

We didn’t hear from that day, nor the next. I was director of photography and was working on a project that was going to take me all over the state, so I decided to use that leeway to check on our team since I needed to go to Key West at some point anyway.

As soon as I hit U.S. 1 south of Miami, I was in a convoy of trailered boats. Every boat that wasn’t on a trailer heading south was parked on the roadside with a For Sale sign on it.

At the Key West city marina, boats were being launched two abreast as quickly as inexperienced mariners could back the trailers up. I saw at least one Cadillac go in up to the windows when the driver backed up too far.

I called the office and said this was a bigger story than the wires were reporting and that I needed a reporter to back me up.

Dick Donovan

They couldn’t have sent a better guy: Dick Donovan was an old-time Chicago cop reporter who had a reputation for getting to the meat of a story. He would stand next to you, then, just before he asked the zinger question that was going to get the subject to react, he’d give you an elbow in the ribs to tell you to get ready.

I’ll go into more detail about the photo at the top left, but I’ll just say that this was the only time I saw Dick with tears in his eyes.

I had to walk away

It didn’t produce as many memorable photos as I would have liked, but it made some memories I’ll never forget.

I was photographing a little boy about the age of Son Matt playing with a little plastic truck just like Matt had at home. Suddenly I realized what a big change was happening in that boy’s life and wondered what the future held for him. I had to walk away for a few minutes.

A little Cuban nun who might have been stacked 4’8″ at best, put her hand on my shoulder and said in broken English, “I’ve been watching you. You don’t just take pictures. You have a big heart.”

That comment meant more to me than any award I ever won.

December 17, 2014

Sides-Miller Men’s Store

Here’s another General Sign Co. sign from Terry’s Hopkins‘ dad’s box of photos. This one is for Sides-Miller Men’s Store at 625 Broadway. It must have been around Christmas time because of the reindeer decoration behind it.

Random news stories

December 6, 1948 – $4000 Loot in Men’s Store Theft – More than $4000 in cash and merchandise was taken from Sides-Miller Men’s Store, 625 Broadway, Saturday night or early Sunday morning by thieves who cut the three-eighths inch iron bars on a rear window and hauled away a 250-pound safe and armloads of men’s wearing apparel, police said today.
July 21, 1949 – Dog Saved Burglary of Store – Sides-Miller men’s store, 625 Broadway, from which burglars stole $4000 in cash and clothing last December 5, was booked a second time by St. Louis thugs last week but a barking dog and heavy iron bars changed the plans, Cape Girardeau police learned Wednesday through written confessions by two St. Louis suspects.
May 13, 1979 – New Sides-Miller – Bulletin-Journal: Sides-Miller Men’s Store, established on Broadway since 1947, has had a change of ownership effective May 1. Larry W. Barnes, a former Girardeau [resident], is the new owner. He and his wife Judi purchased the corporation from Eugene Sides. The name and location of the store will remain the same.
June 10, 1984 – Sides-Miller to close Cape store – Sides-Miller Men’s Store, after 37 years in business is closing out its stock of merchandise, reports Larry Barnes, owner. He said the store, located at 3 West Park Village, will dispose at a special sale all it merchandise during the next 60 days and will not reopen. He stressed that no merchandise in addition to the current inventory will be brought in for the sale. Barnes said his plans for the future are as yet uncertain.
August 17, 2004 – Eugene Sides – Eugene Sides, 91, of Cape Girardeau died Saturday, Aug. 14, 2004, at the Lutheran Home. He was born Jan. 4, 1913, at Indian Creek, Mo., son of Pearl and Jeffie Abernathy Sides. He and Lucille M. Herbst were married July 8, 1940, in Cape Girardeau. She died Aug. 12, 1994. Mr. Sides owned and operated Sides-Miller Men’s Store on Broadway from 1947 to 1980. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and the Korean Conflict. When he returned from Korea, he helped organize Little League baseball in 1952. He was a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University, and a member of Abe Stuber Boys. He was a member of Centenary United Methodist Church, past president of Centenary Men’s Club, and was president of Downtown Rotary Club in 1960. Survivors include a son, Ronald E. Sides of Springfield, Ill.; two daughters, Linda S. Craig and Brenda Sides Emerson of St. Louis; a brother, J.O. Sides of Cape Girardeau; a sister, Hazel Schloss of Jackson; and two granddaughters, Alison Sides and Nina Emerson.

December 16, 2014

Silver Bridge Collapse

Chuck Beckley, who was a high school kid working as a lab tech at The Athens Messenger 47 years ago, posted a photo to Facebook of a roadside marker that read:

Silver Bridge Collapse

Constructed in 1928, connected Point Pleasant and Kanauga, OH. Name credited to aluminum colored paint used. First eye-bar suspension bridge of its type in US. Rush hour collapse on 15 December 1967 resulted in 31 vehicles falling into the river, killing 46 and injuring 9. Failed eye-bar joint and weld identified as cause. Resulted in passage of national bridge inspection standards in 1968.

The model above is one that was exhibited at a fair I covered in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

Who covered it?

Churck asked Bob Rogers, “Did I pick up film from the bus station for you and Jon [Webb], or Ken for this?”

It wasn’t me. I didn’t start working for The Messenger until the summer of 1968. On that particular day, I was on a train about half-way to Cincinnati headed back to Cape for Christmas break. At one of the stops, a passenger got on and started spreading the word about a big bridge collapse in Point Pleasant. He didn’t have a whole lot of details, and I was anxious to get home to see family and Girlfriend Lila, so I didn’t give it much thought.

I spent a lot of time later covering the building of the new Silver Memorial Bridge. Here are the piers of the old bridge. If the railroad bridge in the background is indicative of how well bridges were maintained in those days, it’s no wonder the bridge went down.

Over in less than a minute

Even though I didn’t cover the actual tragedy, I’m haunted by the gouges and scars on this pier. In other photos on that roll, you can still see cables and wires dangling down into the water.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology website explained it in chilling detail:

On December 15, 1967 at about 5PM the traffic signal at one end of the Silver Bridge turned red. The rush hour traffic, together with the Christmas shopping traffic, completely occupied the main span of the bridge connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia with Kanauga, Ohio. Suddenly a loud cracking sound was heard and one of the main towers began to twist and fall.

In less than a minute, all three spans of the bridge collapsed into the icy Ohio River, carrying with them all the cars, trucks, and people. Forty-six died.

[The failure of an eyebar set the chain of events in motion] Once this eyebar failed, the pin fell out, unpinning this part of the suspension chain. The adjacent tower was subjected to an asymmetrical loading that caused it to rotate and allow the western span to twist in a northerly direction. This span crashed down on the western shore, folding over on top of the falling cars and trucks. Loaded by the whole weight of the center span, which had now become unsupported on its western end, the east tower fell westward into the river along with the center span. Finally, the west tower collapsed toward Pt. Pleasant and into the Ohio River, completing the destruction of the Silver Bridge.

Two bodies were never recovered.

Silver Memorial Bridge

I took this photo of the new Silver Memorial Bridge on December 6, 1969. The replacement bridge opened on December 15, 1969, exactly two years after the collapse.

When I went through that area last summer, I looked for any remnants of the old Silver Bridge. Either I was in the wrong place or every trace of it has been removed. I still think about what it must have been like to have been stuck in that traffic jam nearly half a century ago.

James Baughn’s Bridgehunter website has more information on the bridge and its collapse.

December 14, 2014

Florida Gas Below $2.50

I was all excited in Cape when gas dropped to $3.03 in September.

I’m not sure what it was when Sons Matt and Adam pulled up at this gas station when we were on vacation in the Southwest in the summer of 1990. It’s probably good I didn’t need to put Dino Supreme in my Dodge Caravan.

This afternoon, Wife Lila and I passed a gas station in Palm Beach County where the gas was less than $2.50. That’s pretty good for us; our taxes usually make it about a dime a gallon higher here than it is in Okeechobee County, northwest of us. (I always buy a lottery ticket when I gas up at a station there. You know how it seems like it’s always some out-of-the-way place in a little town that gets a winner. I keep hoping.)