Southeast Hospital Archives

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 28, 2011September 28, 2011

Doctors Wilson and Estes

I have some fuzzy memories of the Spanish Revival style brick building at 714 Broadway. When I was a kid, Mother would take my grandmother, Elsie Welch, there for arthritis treatments. Dr. Charles F. Wilson was her doctor. When I searched for information on the building, I found that Dr. Wilson shared office space with Dr. Albert M. Estes.

Civil Defense needs 400 block wardens

Here are some stories that ran in The Missourian that mentioned the two doctors.

Sept. 9, 1954 – Reports on the organization of special groups within the local Civil Defense unit were made Wednesday night at Fort D at a meeting of service chiefs presided over by Kenneth Cruse, director of the local unit. Dr. Charles Wilson, medical chief, reported that his group is organized and that he has studied the plans set out by the state Civil Defense headquarters. About 40 persons have volunteered for service as block wardens, according to John Kitchens, group chief, but “this number is very short of our actual needs,” he added. Plans call for a warden on each of the city’s approximate 400 blocks.
Feb. 7, 1956 – The course of history has often been changed by disease as by military conquest, Dr. Charles F. Wilson said Monday in a talk before Rotary Club. [If you follow the link, he gives some interesting examples.]

Dr. Estes first to use electrocardiogram

Sept. 29, 1970 – Dr. Raymond A. Ritter, spoke to the Rotary Club in 1970 about the changes in medicine in Cape Girardeau over his 37 years of practice. He said that he and Dr. H.V. Ashley are the only two practicing physicians of those here when he began his practice here June 28, 1933. Dr. L.S. Bunch and Dr. H.F. Baumstark are the only remaining dentists practicing at that time, he added. Doctors George Walker and C.A.W. Zimmerman were local pioneers in the used of radiology. Dr. Albert M. Estes was the first physician in Cape Girardeau to use the electrocardiogram.
Nov. 11, 1972 – The cardiac units at St. Francis Hospital will be known as the Dr. Albert M. Estes Cardiac station in honor of Dr. Estes’ 33 years of internal medicine practice in Jackson and Cape Girardeau. Dr. Estes established the first two cardiac care units in Southeast Missouri. The first unit was located in St. Francis Hospital in 1949, and the other soon afterwards as Southeast Missouri Hospital.
Sept. 22, 2001 – Flora Marie French passed away Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001. She practiced as a registered nurse in the office of Dr. Charles Wilson 14 years, and then at St. Francis Hospital 10 years. After retiring, she was a member of the St. Francis Auxiliary.

June 13, 2011December 29, 2011

Do These Photos Say Cape?

I have a friend who was looking for some stock photos of Cape to use as headers on a web page. I started poking around and came up with these old and new photos that I think capture some of the spirit of the town.

The biggest challenge was finding pictures that would fit the exact format shape – a skinny horizontal.

Photographers HATE to shoot for shape

Photographers HATE going out to shoot for shape. We always figured that was a sign that the page designer was too lazy to work with the most story-telling photos on deadline. He wanted to dummy the page early so he could go home early.

Photographers, of course, believe that every photograph is perfectly composed. Some would express that conceit by printing their photos “full frame” with black borders that indicated that the picture had not been cropped. (Guilty as charged.)

Of course, as a guy who had to do his own layouts, I found that sometimes cropping the photo made the page look a lot better. It was OK if I did it; it was a mortal sin if someone else did it.

Photo gallery

Since I’m not exactly sure what my friend is looking for, I’ve pulled together photos that you’ve seen before and some that were in the pipeline. I’m curious to see what you think best says “Cape Girardeau.”

If she uses any, I’ll post the website address. As always, click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.