Author: Ken Steinhoff

Longview AKA the Thilenius House

I ran some aerial photos of the neighborhoods around Capaha Park February 15, 2010, where I asked readers if they could identify the large white house at the bottom of the photo. It had a street or driveway that looked like a question mark leading to and around it. It looked like something I should remember, but I drew a blank.

Sixteen minutes after posting the question, Missourian Photographer Fred Lynch sent me the answer: the mystery house was Longview, also known as the Col. George C. Thilenius House.

You can see the original story and a flood of comments here.

Even though the home is only about two blocks from Cape Central High, is on the second highest hill in the city and has been there since 1870, I had never seen the place.

View from the south

My Mother, who has been just about everywhere there is a where, said she had never been there, either, but knew “about” where it was. Her “about” was good enough. It was at 100 Longview Place, within about two blocks of Central and about two blocks from a house we owned on Themis St. long before Central was even a dream.

Longview Place, is a jog on what, otherwise, would be Whitener St. It’s south of Themis St, west of Keller Ave., east of Sunset Blvd. and north of Independence St.

National Register of Historic Places

Fortunately for the curious, there’s a wealth of information about the property. Want a floor plan of the interior? Want to know about why red tile replaced the original wood shingles in 1926? (Fire.)

Want to know when the house was wired for electricity and received indoor plumbing? (1917.)

The application filed to have the residence listed on the National Register of Historic Places has all of that and more.

It’s available for download here. It’s a huge document that may be too large for folks who don’t have broadband internet connections. If you’re interested in area history, I’d encourage you to snatch it.

Here’s a hint: I kept getting error messages saying the file was damaged when I clicked on it like you would a normal link. That’s probably related to its size. Here’s what worked:

• Right-click over the link above.
• Chose Save Link As and download the file.
• Use Adobe Acrobat to open it.

Wine cellar? Slaves?

Some of the readers mentioned that they had seen or heard of a wine cellar on the property; others wondered if it had any connection to slavery.

Tidbits from the Register document

• George C. Thilenius and many other German settlers took a strong pro-Union, anti-slavery position in the days leading up to the Civil War.
• He participated in the first Union triumph of the Civil War, saving St. Louis for the Union.
• General U.S. Grant ordered the construction of four forts in Cape Girardeau and put Thilenius in charge of them.
• In 1867, Thilenius paid $1,000 for the 9.56 acre site where Longview sits. Before building his home, he built a three-story brick winery on the site.
• Construction of the house, which is the only one of its kind in Cape Girardeau, began in 1870.
• The remains of the old Thilenius Winery are located on the property to the west of the house. The subterranean cellar portion of the winery is all that remains today, and, except for an entrance on the extreme west end, has been covered over with earth. The upper two brick floors of the winery were demolished in 1964.
• All but 1.4 acres of the original 9.56 acres were sold to a real estate developer in the 1950s.

Longview from the west

The railroad changed Cape Rock

Cape Girardot or Girardeau, founded on Cape Rock, was once an actual cape (a strip of land projecting into a body of water). Sometime in the early 1900s, it was decided that a railroad was more valuable than some rocks sticking 0ut into the Mississippi River, so the promontory was cut to allow tracks to be laid.

The feat was accomplished in time for trains to be able to journey to the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1904.

This string of rail cars loaded with coal was parked on a siding March 15, 2010, when I drove down to see how high the river was rising. This is looking south from the small parking area on the north side of Cape Rock. Cape Rock is on the right.

View to the north

This shows the track curving to the north, in the direction of Twin Trees Park. The 2009 Tour of Missouri passed by here last summer.

Cape Rock in the Fall

It’s pretty easy to see why Louis Lorimier decided to move Cape Girardeau a couple of miles to the south where the land was flatter. This was taken on a beautiful late October afternoon in 2009. One piece of bad news: there’s a sign that says the park is closed from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Cape Rock mystery

Here’s a photo of some unidentified students with the Cape Rock monument taken sometime in the late 60s. There was nothing written on the film envelope, so I’m open to guesses.

The photo was shot with flash, so it must have been taken late in the day (I don’t do EARLY in the day if I have a choice). They’re wearing short-sleeved shirts and a couple of them have on shorts, so it’s warm weather or they’re a hardy bunch.

They’re doing that photographer-directed, stare at this rock and pretend to be fascinated thing, so something that passes as news is probably being committed here.

Anybody here know these folks?