First Presbyterian Church Archives

April 6, 2014May 1, 2014

Preservation Homework: Churches & Cemeteries

Dr. Katy Beebe invited me to speak to her historical preservation class at Southeast Missouri State University last year. Dr. Lily Santora asked if I would come back April 8 to meet with her class.

Dr. Beebe’s class was researching Main Street, so I put together a list of the stories I had done about downtown. Dr. Santora gave her class a wide variety of local landmarks. I’ll spend the next couple of days helping her students by posting links to stories I’ve done about their topics. I’m going to concentrate on churches and cemeteries today. (Maybe I can make up for all those assignments I didn’t turn in when I was a student.)

[Hint to students: don’t just read what I’ve written. The comments are generally more interesting than my copy. Feel free to post questions and comments of your own. My readers are a friendly group who love to share Cape’s history. Click on the photos to make them larger.]

First Presbyterian Church

St. Mary’s Cathedral

Dr. Bankhead Installed as Pastor

I always tried to come back with a candid shot instead of a set-up from assignments. I liked this shot of a preacher’s kid who had had enough of the formal reception line.

The caption in the August 7, 1967, Missourian read, “The work of the photographer was a lot more important to William Morton Bankhead than the receiving line at a reception. Young Bankhead stands between his parents, Dr. and Mrs. Robert C. Bankhead as they receive guest following Dr. Bankhead’s installation Sunday night as pastor of First Presbyterian Church. Dr. Bankhead greets Mrs. Jan Chick, while Mrs. Bankhead chats with Mrs. Charles Black, Mrs. Chick’s mother.

He was the 24th minister of the 132-year-old denomination at the corner of Broadway and Lorimier. Here’s the whole story with lots of names you’ll recognize.

Covered re-belling of new church

I captured photos of the church being torn down in 1965, then the re-belling of the new church in December of that year.

May 14, 2012

Broadway Construction Project

Brother Mark was down in Cape for Mother’s Day. He’s got an advantage when it comes to jockeying for a favorable position in the will. He’s 125 miles away from Mother; I’m 1,100 miles away.

He jingled the keys and mother hopped in the car to go exploring. Mark stopped long enough to shoot these pictures of the 200 and 300 blocks of Broadway. The city’s embarked on what is either a very good or a very bad idea. They are enlarging the sidewalks on the north side of the street to make the area more attractive to pedestrians (at the expense of parking on that side). Here was the Broadway end-to-end piece I did recently, by the way.

Narrow lanes worry me

We had a West Palm Beach mayor (thankfully, gone) who went on a traffic-calming binge. There were a number of streets that were wide enough that a car could pass my bike without having to cross the centerline while still giving me the legal three feet of clearance. He started choking the lanes with traffic furniture where he didn’t narrow them and added speed humps willy-nilly. By doing that, he made it impossible for a car to pass without going over the centerline, which irritated folks if there was oncoming traffic.

So, if you see me cranking my way up the Broadway hill, just know that I’m going as fast as I can and that it wasn’t MY idea to make the lanes smaller. Oh, and the sidewalk isn’t an option. Bikes don’t belong on sidewalks.

It IS pretty, though.

Brother Mark’s photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery. I don’t know why he’s being so nice to me. There’s nothing to put in the will, it’s past his birthday and Christmas is a long time off.

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.

First Presbyterian Church

St. Mary’s Cathedral

Christ Episcopal Church

Evangelical United Church of Christ

St. James AME Church

Fairmount Cemetery

St. Mary’s Cemetery