Cape Girardeau History and Photos

September 19, 2012September 16, 2015

My Exhibit in Altenburg

The kind folks at the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum were kind enough to send out a bunch of press releases today.

For Immediate Press Release:

The Perry County Lutheran Historical Society’s, Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum is pleased to open a new exhibit: “Ordinary People Doing Ordinary Things: Ken Steinhoff Photojournalist, 1964-Present,” featuring nearly 50 years of photography from: Cape Girardeau County, Perry County, New Madrid, MO; Tower Rock, portraiture, and other rural documentary photography.

Steinhoff’s take on his work is, “I’ve covered popes, presidents, and the Queen of England, but I really like to shoot ordinary people doing ordinary things: the invisible folks whose names only appear in the paper when they are born, when they die, when they get married and when they get a speeding ticket.”

Open Daily Now- through November 2–10:00am-4:00pm-. Free Admission

Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum, 75 Church St., Altenburg, MO 63732

573-824-6070

Sneak Preview

You can see more layouts here.

I’m going to be doing a photo and video presentation at a conference at the museum on October 25, but I’m setting up a “dress rehearsal” a week or so in advance of that. I have way too much material and want to know which babies to throw out of the lifeboat. I’ll post more info when I get to Cape around Oct. 10 or so. I’d love to see some of you up there so you can hear my war stories in person.

September 18, 2012February 11, 2021

Wreck at Broadway – Perry

The thing that caught my eye about these photos wasn’t the wreck – it looks pretty minor. It was the neighborhood in the vicinity of Broadway and Perry Ave. and how it has changed since these photos were taken in the mid-1960s. Almost everything on the south side of Broadway has been gobbled up by Southeast Hospital. Click on the photos to make them larger.

Stubb’s Beer Garden gone

The 1968 City Directory lists the following businesses in this block of Broadway

1700 – Lacy’s Texaco Service
1703 – Bill Wescoat’s Trailer Rental Service & Wescoat Motor Company
1704 – Cape Drive-in Cleaners
1720 – Stubb’s Beer Palace
1736 – Child’s IGA Foodliner

The city directory might list it as Stubb’s Beer Palace, but we always referred to it as the Beer Garden. It’s a parking lot now. Child’s Foodliner is occupied by an orthodontics practice.

2011 Aerial of SE Hospital -1700 Block

Here is a 2011 aerial of the area. Perry Avenue comes in the from the left. Capaha Park is at top left, and Southeast Hospital takes up most of the right side of the photo. You can go here to see aerial photos of the area in 1964.

Wreck doesn’t look serious

Looks like car vs. pole and sign. I learned a long time ago not to play crash investigator and speculate about the cause of a wreck.

I may have told this story before. I had to testify in a civil suit involving a car crash. I showed up with more prints than Arlo Guthrie in Alice’s Restaurant. I was barely old enough to have a driver’s license of my own, so one of the attorneys tried to get me to speculate about the cause of the accident and to lead me into making a statement he could pounce on. I kept saying, “The photo shows x, y and z. That’s all I can tell you.”

“You testified that the skid marks were 37 feel long. Could they have been 34 or 38 feet long and not 37 feet long? What makes you so sure they were 37 feet long.”

“I took a tape measure and measured them because I figured some lawyer would ask me that.”

“No further questions.”

Houses are all gone

It’s hard to believe that the Broadway facing Capaha Park was once filled with family homes. John Hilpert, one of my best buddies in grade school lived in an old two-story house on the other side of Louisiana Avenue.

September 17, 2012February 7, 2021

Picture Day at Hollister School

Missourian photographer Fred Lynch left a comment on my post about Paul Lueuders showing up at Central High School to take homeroom photos for the Girardot: “When I was in high school, I always liked working alongside a group photographer. I would take pictures of the kids ‘getting ready’ to be photographed when they didn’t think anyone was watching, or taking their picture.”

That got me to thinking about this picture page I did for The Athens Messenger November 8, 1968. The original assignment was to go to Hollister School to capture kids being vaccinated or something, but it turned out that local studio photographer Ralph Norris was there to shoot student photos, so I switched gears.

Once you got out of the Ohio University-dominated Athens and out into the county, you were in Appalachia, where poverty and worked-out coal mines were found down every back road. When I see people walking down the street sporting “Hollister” labels, I have a different picture in my mind than they do. (Like always, you can click the pix to make them bigger.)

Slicked-back hair and shiny faces

Like Fred wrote, it was fun to sit back and watch Ralph work with the kids. He had a gentle touch and put the children at ease. He wasn’t the master photographer Paul Lueders was, but he was a decent craftsman who had been doing his job for years.

My copy was short and sweet on the page: “Slicked-back hair and shiny faces were the order of the day at Hollister School Wednesday. That’s when photographer Ralph Norris came to take everybody’s picture. Here’s how it was.”

Pretty girls and a crown

Ralph and I would cross paths from time to time. He was a nice guy who was fun to talk with. I don’t think we ever exchanged any heavy thought, but I do owe him big for one piece of advice he gave me.

Covering Miss Rutabaga or something

He was the official photographer for some local pageant. I don’t remember if it was Miss Athens County or Miss Rutabaga or whatever. All I know is that it involved pretty girls and a crown. I went to the swimming pool to shoot the bathing suit competition. Hey, newspaper photographing is a tough job.

Now that I think back, I don’t know how I got the pageant assignment. That had boss Bob Rogers written all over it. He must have been out of town.

Anyway, Ralph pulled me over to the side and said, “It’s become kind of a tradition for the girls to throw me in the pool after I take the group shot, so you might want to be prepared to get wet – you know how all those photographers look alike – or to beat feet while they’re distracted by me.”

I managed to get a shot of him making a big splash, then exited quickly.

I should go look for those negatives

Now that I think of it, I need to go digging for those negatives. To look for Ralph, of course.

September 17, 2012November 14, 2012

1965 Sophomore Picture Day

It wasn’t the start of the school year until Paul Lueders showed up to take homeroom photos for The Girardot. The first step in this herding of cats was for him to size up where everybody was going to sit and stand. He was the consummate professional who never got flustered nor lost his patience. I’ve shot enough group photos to know that’s not easy. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

Everybody look here

He’s making sure he can see every face. Girardot staffer Marcia Maupin, at right with the clipboard, is trying to get the names nailed down.

Moment of Truth

This is where the wizard disappeared behind the curtain to work his magic. His use of large-format film – probably 4″ x 5″ in this case, was one of the reasons his photos were so sharp and clear.

I apologize for all the scratches and spots on these photos. Time and storage hasn’t done the film any favors. I decided it was too damaged to try to repair everything.

Sophomore students

I actually have names for the photos for a change. If there are any errors, blame Marcia Maupin. This is the photo that appeared in the 1965 Girardot.