Cape Girardeau History and Photos

February 8, 2014

Delta High School Basketball

These photos show Delta High School playing a team with uniforms that don’t have a school name on them. The assumption must have been that if you bothered to show up for the game that you’d know who was playing. A cheerleader’s sweater in one of the frames has a big “N” on it surrounded by what might be a “D,” which would probably make it Notre Dame.

Beyond that, you are on your own.

Delta photo gallery

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

February 7, 2014

We Had Snow in the ’60s

You folks are tired of looking at snow and ice, I’m sure, but this is a reminder we had snow back in the 1960s. We had less snow than Cape has gotten in the last few winters, but I think we were better prepared for it. More cars had snow tires and it was common to put chains on the drive wheels back then.

I think this might have been taken at one of the stations where The Missourian would drop off our bundles of papers. It might have been a Gulf. The press would spit out the papers in batches of 50 or 100; they would be handed off to a binding machine that would put a blank wrap of paper around the stack, then twist a thick copper wire tightly around it to hold them together. A sheet of paper with your route number on it would let you know which bundles belonged to you.

When I first started carrying papers at age 12, I had to work to untwist the copper wire to get it off my bundle. When I got a little older and little stronger, I could grab the bundle under the wrapper paper, give it a hard yank and break the copper wire. When winter came around, the station owner would ask us to save the copper wire for him so he could use it to hold tire chains on his customers’ cars.

La-Petite Motel

A lot of these negatives are pretty scratched and spotted up. Just pretend the spots are snow flakes. The 1968 City Directory says the La-Petite Motel was at 1301 North Kingshighway and was owned or managed by Charles and Lorraine Scheller.

Human-powered snow cleaning

The sidewalks around Central High School were cleaned by guys with shovels, not fancy snowblowers. The fact that they are being cleaned leads me to believe school was in session, snow or no snow.

A long throw

I don’t know if he’s shoveling out the stairwell or just breaking off overhanging snow.

Must have been a windy storm

This snow storm must have had some wind with it to pile up drifts like these.

Central’s basement

I had forgotten how they built Central’s basement to be able to have windows to let light in.

Hilly neighborhood

I tried to read the mailboxes, but the letters were too small. I don’t know where this neighborhood was, but it was hilly and the snow didn’t have many tracks.

Out in the country

This house looks familiar, but I can’t put a name or a face to it. Anybody? You can watch some 8mm home movies of snow here.

As usual, you can click on the photos to make them larger.

February 7, 2014

Franklin School Safety Patrol

There’s no doubt that young ladies were attracted to those cool uniforms we School Safety Patrol guys wore. Not only did we have bright yellow helmets, Sam Browne belts and bright raincoats, but we also had the STOP flags that could capture the cute girls until you gave them permission to proceed.

Key post at Keller and Themis

Our patrolman bundles up against the rain falling on his post at Keller and Themis. That’s my 1959 Buick LaSabre station wagon at the curb (mentioned for the car collectors who specialize in it).

White boots and rolled cuffs

This was the era of white boots for girls and rolled-up blue jean cuffs for boys. I mean, you had to buy them long because of expected growing spurts. Just like bikes were bought big enough that you had to put wood blocks on the pedals so you could reach them until you grew into the two-wheeler.

Not allowed to stop cars

We were strictly informed that we weren’t supposed to actually stop cars. Our flag was to hold back the kids until we were sure the street was safe to cross, then we would swing out flag out to reinforce to any approaching car that they were supposed to stop.

I did, in my role as Captain, turn in the tag and description of a car that failed to stop at the stop sign I had rolled out into the middle of the street. Whether he turned it into the cops or not, I never knew.

We took our jobs seriously

I am proud to report that all of our charges always made it across the street safely. Surprisingly enough, I don’t recall any of our peers mocking us for our duty. Maybe it was because we could sneak out of class early to take our posts. We wore our rolled-up white Sam Browne belts attached to our belts when we were off-duty.

Trinity and St. Mary’s Patrols

February 6, 2014December 9, 2021

A Band of Bands

Somebody will have to tell me what brought all these bands together. I saw high school logos from Cape Central, Jackson, Advance, Valle, Kelly, Sikeston, “D” and one uniform sporting “Official All American Lover.” I’m not even sure where the photos were taken. I thought it was Houck Stadium, but it might have been at Jackson High School.

This was one of my rolls of coffee can film and it was in really bad shape. I think it might have been processed in the darkroom at The Jackson Pioneer, one of the most primitive facilities I ever had the displeasure of working in, and that includes darkrooms I set up in motel rooms while covering hurricanes.

A lot of the frames weren’t fixed nor washed properly, so they have amoeba-like shapes on them that were too big to even think about spotting out. So, look around the dust spots, scratches and amoebas, please.

Bands from all over

This shot has “D” girls in the foreground, but Central High School majorette Della Heise is behind them.

UPDATE

Thanks to Lois Seabaugh, Terry Hopkins, Linda Suedekum, Phil Lewis and others who were more awake in the 1960s than your photographer, the event has been identified as the annual Jackson Band Festival.

Band photo gallery

You are welcome to try to put names and schools to faces. Click on any photo to maker it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery. Again, please overlook the flaws.