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.
Frony shot this picture of a couple of deer hunters in front of Stubb’s Beer Garden.
http://www.semissourian.com/blogs/flynch/entry/38229
That is Lynn Miller’s 160 Honda in the picture….Lynn used to let me ride this fine bike. Robert Hileman had one just like it until he moved up to a 305 Yamaha, a huge bike at the time. Bill Westcoat ran his suto place there for years and bought several cars from him over the years, a Toyota and a Triumph. Bill was nice guy, Bill Bishop’s Dad bought a 62 Studebaker Lark for Bill to drive around in all thru High School, I sent many a good hour in this car with good friends driving all around Cape. The 60 Olds Convertable is a familar car…just can not remember who owned it…one the upper class girls as I remember…but a 37 foot skid mark means she was going pretty slow.
That could be Lynns bike as he worked for his Uncle Don Lacy and later owned the Texaco for years. I spent many many hours there throughout high school and college. It was always great to have mechanic connections to work on my rides. Steve Hileman also worked there along with Tom Sanders ’68.
I had worked at the IGA too and Stubbs was a favorite watering hole of my Dad and lots of blue collar workers. It had a spring fed pond that always ha
d huge ‘golfish’ coy or some type of carp in it.
I lived only blocks away and we would stop in Stubbs for a soda or to buy fishing tackle to fish the pond at Capaha park, lots of doughballs for the sunfish.
I always dreamed of buying Stubbs and move back to Cape and turning it into a sports bar & grill.Thad was always so friendly. Thanks for bringing back the memories.
My automotive career began on that corner in 1978 at Cape Toyota just after Bill Wescoat sold the dealership to Gary Stanley, Doyle Cathey and Charlie Lloyd. When we moved from Broadway to 831 S Kingshighway, the building became a Pizza Hut.
My boyhood home was right in the grass triangle at the bottom center of the aerial photo … 614 Sunset Court at the bottom of that dead end street. David Stubbs lived across Broadway from the beer garden, and our back yards nearly touched. And who can forget the winter draw in the neighborhood, “hospital hill” for sledding!
As pointed out, until the construction of Wescoat’s building, Hospital Hill was the finest sledding venue in Cape. The steepness of the angle combined with the danger of Broadway traffic at the bottom gave a rush unmatched in town. Flexible Flyers were the preferred vehicle as the late introduced saucers were uncontrollable, and almost sure to reach the street, bailing out being the only alternative.
As I recall the climb back to the top was arduous, and more than once was taken to reach the emergency room.
Only Academic Hill surpassed Hospital Hill in hazard level. Before the walk and trees were added (some say because of the sledding) the SEMO boys bought steel car hoods at the junk yard and used them as snow vehicles for parties of 10. With several of these flying down the hill it was a real danger to young townie, several of whom did end up at Southeast with serious injuries.
Thanks for the picture of our old home (first brick house on hill). It brings back a lot of memories. A.R. Pat, Javada and Sam Nanna
Jim Smith a 60 classmate lived in one of those houses along Broadway across from the part. His Father worked with my Step-Father for a while at Moon Dist. co.