Cape Girardeau History and Photos

Every day there were tons of rolls of blank newsprint waiting for ink to be squirted on them. Some days you had assignments to shoot photos that would illustrate stories. Other days, the editor would ask, “Got any wild art?”

Wild art – sometimes called CLO, for Cut Lines Only – was a photo or photos that would stand alone without a story.

Photographer wasn’t human

All newspaper photographers have to be generalists who can do a competent job shooting whatever arises, but most of them have things they do better than others. I had one guy who had an uncanny ability to shoot sports. He could read the plays better than the athletes; be where the action was going to happen; nail the ball, the number and the action, perfectly exposed and tack-sharp. There was some speculation that he wasn’t human.

Others were great at lighting. They could make interiors and food come alive. A few were good at coming up with illustrations for stories that didn’t lend themselves to straight journalistic photography.

I was most comfortable shooting portraits, documentary picture stories and spot news.

Animal photos were the exception

I was lousy at feature photos and wild art. I always wanted to turn feature situations into stories. Very seldom did I ever stoop so low as to shoot animal photos like these.

Tuned to a different frequency

An unsolicited portfolio arrived at the office when I was trying desperately to fill the fifth of five positions that had just come open when the staff was raided and a husband-and-wife team left for a bigger paper. The applicant was someone we had never heard of, working at a small paper we had never heard of, but his feature photos were phenomenal. So phenomenal, in fact, that the chief photographer and I grilled him hard. “We don’t set up photos here, and your pictures look, to be blunt, ‘too good to be true.’ How did you happen to shoot photos X, Y and Z”

“I just get these feelings,” he said. “I think, if I stand in this place, it’s like I can see in my mind what’s going to happen.”

It turned out to be true. It was like he was tuned to a different frequency than the rest of us. If he had been as good at picking lottery numbers as he was in being able to predict what was going to walk into his camera frame, he’d have been rich.

Leo A. Heuer and his two buffalo made it into The Missourian Aug. 28, 1967. The bull stood six feet high and weighed 1,900 pounds, the story said. The female was lighter, 1,200 pounds. They were about eight years shy of full maturity, when the bull could stand seven feet tall and weight as much as 3,000 pounds.

Bought them from Grant’s Farm

Heuer bought the two beasts from Grant’s Farm, owned by St. Louis brewer August A. Busch, in 1963 for $600. At the time, they were small enough that you could almost pick them up. He said raising them wasn’t a great problem, that they were sturdy, durable animals that fared better in extreme heat and cold than cattle.

The farm was located on Three Mile Creek Road, about two miles east of Highway 61.

These photos were taken for The Missourian’s Farm Page June 8, 1967.

Haymaking Time

The caption below the photo says that “it’s haymaking time in Cape county and on the John Below farm near Allenville, activity has been brisk. Throwing a heavy bale aboard a pickup truck are Terry Givens (foreground) and Johnny Below.”

Rain hasn’t been problem

The caption continues, “Cutting of 162 acres of hay on the farm started Sunday. Rain has not been a great problem, Mr. Below reported.”

Learned to “hunker”

I filled in as Farm Editor from time to time. It was there I learned how to “hunker,” something that served me well over the years. You “hunker” by planting your feet flat on the ground, then “sitting” so that your bottom almost touches the ground. With a little practice, it can be comfortable when you’re chewing the fat with a farmer. It helps if you have a weed to chew on while you’re hunkered.

Hunkering was a lot easier when I was younger and more flexible. De-hunkering has become much more difficult over the years.

I also learned that “Below” is pronounced more like Blue or Beelou in the area.