Cape Girardeau History and Photos

January 16, 2012January 16, 2012

Martin Luther King Day

In the spring of 1968, I was photo editor of The Ohio University Post and a photography major. One of my classes – it might have been Magazine and Newspaper Photography – had us form up into teams. We had to pick a geographical area, then document what happened in that area for a week. Classmate Lyntha Scott Eiler was on The Athena, the university yearbook. The publications worked out of the student union building on the Main Green and, since we practically lived there anyway, we picked that as our geographical area. We recruited two more team members and set to work.

The first part of the project was boringly routine: college students playing around with dogs, sunning themselves on the War Memorial, just light-hearted stuff.

A gunshot changed everything

The mood of the campus changed in a heartbeat with a gunshot in Memphis, Tenn. Dr. Martin Luther King was dead.

Memorial service changed to sit-in

My team was lucky enough that our area was where a National Day of Mourning service was going to be held. When it broke up, the crowd moved a block north to the major intersection in town at Court and Union Streets to conduct a sit-in. This wasn’t unusual. That was the traditional spot for the annual Rites of Spring riot and anti-war protests. Cops and students would do a choreographed chicken dance, then everybody would break up and go home. Few arrests were made and teargas wasn’t used until after Kent State.

We could have had a riot

This time, though, a redneck Athens police captain decided he was going to literally throw the demonstrators off of his streets. He didn’t realize how raw emotions were. It was as close to sparking a race riot as Athens has ever come. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the students were allowed to block the street for a “reasonable” amount of time.

I’ve been afraid for years that we had to turn in our film as part of the project, but I ran across it last week. I’m going to save the bulk of the photos for the anniversary of the National Day of Mourning to give me a chance to track down some of the students so they can tell me what they remember of that day.

I don’t recall what grade we got on the project, but I’m pleased with what I’ve seen so far.

January 14, 2012January 15, 2012

First Baptist Church Bell Found

I wondered in my story about the original First Baptist Church if the bell salvaged from a sunken steamboat was still in the 200 Broadway church or if it had been moved. It didn’t take long for Mitchell Givens to send me this photo of the bell at the First General Baptist Church. Mitchell, CHS Class of ’59, says the bell is attached to a motor and can be rung from inside the church. He and James Baker hooked it up. Bill Reiker was responsible for the brick work.

A bell with a history

He also sent this clipping. I assume it was from The Missourian.

First Presbyterian Church bell

I did another church bell story a year ago when I published photos of the razing of the First Presbyterian Church at the corner of Lorimier and Broadway and its subsequent re-belling.

Trinity Lutheran Church bell

Here are photos taken in the bell tower of Trinity Lutheran Church before it was torn down.

January 14, 2012March 27, 2016

Cape’s First Protestant Church

No telling how many hundreds of times I’ve driven past the deteriorating old wall on Lorimier across from what used to be the library without giving it a second glance. For some reason, I pulled into the parking lot south of the old library and noticed what appeared to be two stairways going up to the remains of an old stone foundation. That’s when I saw a bronze historical marker on the wall. That made it worth the walk across the street, even it it was spitting rain. Click on any image to make it larger.

Original site of First Baptist Church

The plaque explained that the ruins were what is left of the First Baptist Church, thought to be the first Protestant church in Cape Girardeau. It was organized August 13, 1834. The site was used from 1839 to 1893. When I did a Google search for First Baptist Church, the fourth reference was a story I did in November 2010 about the new First Baptist Church at Lexington and Cape Rock Drive. THAT story contained a link to photos I had taken of the church on Broadway that was having its steeple painted in 1967. It just goes to show how everything in Cape is related to everything else.

A staircase for each gender

Tom Neumeyer’s book, Cape Girardeau Then & Now, says that the two staircases and two doorways to the church allowed men and women to be segregated as the entered and left the church.

Not the Second Coming

Tom relates the tale of the time when the church shook and the floor sank during a Sunday service. Some of the congregants were sure it was the Second Coming. It turned out to be less dramatic: a support resting on a rotting stump simply gave way.

Church bell came from sunken steamboat

Church member Col. G.W. Juden and some of his slaves salvaged a bell for the church from a sunken steamboat. The bell was moved to the church at 200 Broadway in 1893. That church is now for sale. I don’t know if the steamboat bell is still in the steeple or if it was moved to the Lexington church.

January 13, 2012

Cape County Courthouse in Jackson

When the old Federal Building on Broadway in the same block as The Missourian became surplus, there was some discussion about using it to shuffle city or county offices around. One reason was that the existing county courthouse in Jackson is showing its age and is getting cramped for space. Here is an aerial view of the courthouse looking from the southwest to the northeast. The building with the light-colored flat roof at the top left is the county jail. Click on any photo to make it larger.

Courthouse from the northwest

This view is from the northwest looking to the southeast. The jail is at the bottom left of this photo.

Downtown Jackson

This photo, taken looking nearly straight down, is from the southwest corner of the courthouse square. Storefronts on the east side of the main drag show up plainly.