Cape Girardeau Downtown and Riverfront Archives

September 7, 2011December 27, 2015

How High’s the Water, Momma?

A shot similar to this ran on the front page of The Missourian June 26, 1967, along with a story headlined “River Keeps Rising.” Then, as now, people gravitated to the riverfront to experience the power of the rushing flood waters. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

Missing Cape landmarks

There are two Cape landmarks in this photo that you won’t see today: the tall, white smokestack at the shoe factory and the smaller stack at the power plant north of it.

The river’s coming up, but both floodgates are still open.

Cape river gauge

The negative sleeve is marked June 24, 1967, but the photos didn’t run until June 26. The story says that the river was at 32.88 feet and expected to crest at 33.3 feet, 1.3 feet above flood stage.

Honker’s Boat Dock

I must have worked my way north from the riverfront, because the rest of the roll was taken in that direction. Here’s a car getting ready to launch a boat at what was then called Honker’s Boat Dock in the Red Star District north of the shoe factory.

Shoe factory smokestack

Here’s another view of the shoe factory smoke stack from Honker’s. I must have talked my way onto the boat that was being launched to get this angle.

Twin Trees Park?

The next two shots are a mystery, but they look a little like Twin Trees Park. Can anyone confirm that? I know that a lot of you never saw the park in the daylight, so it might be a little tough.

Picnic next to the floodwaters

I don’t recall the land going up that steeply behind Twin Trees and I don’t see the railroad tracks that run behind it. If it’s not Twin Trees, where is it?

Another mystery photo

Here’s another shot north of Cape I can’t identify. I’m going to guess that it’s north of Twin Trees along East Cape Rock Drive.

Need boat to get to garden, chicken and cow

A similar shot in The Missourian says that Otis Phillps, East Cape Rock Drive, and his daughter, Becky, are forced to use a boat to get to their garden, chickens and cow.

Cape Creek or Juden Creek?

The photo caption continues: “The Mississippi River has backed into Cape Creek, causing the smaller stream to overflow into the Twin Trees Park area.” My topographic map doesn’t show a Cape Creek in that area, but there is a Juden Creek. Has it been renamed or did it go by multiple names like Cape LaCroix creek was also called 3-Mile Creek?

Controversial dam

The same week, I did a story about a controversial dam farmers erected near Dutchtown to protect their fields.

September 1, 2011September 18, 2011

Casino Main Street Relocation

Main Street used to have a slight jog around the old shoe factory, then go through a set of flood gates to cross Sloan Creek and head north through Red Star. To accommodate the new Isle Casino Cape Girardeau, Main Street was curved more to the north to tie directly into Chestnut Street / 177 / Big Bend Road. It looks like it’s going to cross the creek far enough west that it won’t need flood gates. A construction worker said he thought the old gates might be permanently closed.

Panorama of Main Street relocation

This is a stitching together of five photos ranging from the north end where the road meets Big Bend Road and running to south of Mill Street. I’m really impressed with the way Photoshop managed to blend the photos together. I didn’t do anything special to make sure they were overlapping or particularly level. Photoshop made all of the magic happen with a button push. Click on any photo to maker it larger. (This one should be about twice the size of what I normally post.)

Super-secret, hush-hush project

I wouldn’t have even attempted this in the old black and white darkroom days. Well, I should rethink that. Years and years ago, long before Google Earth, the boss called me into his office and said that he had a super-secret project he needed my help on and that I shouldn’t ask any questions. He wanted me to rent a helicopter and fly a grid, shooting photos of a particular area that I should join together to give a composite view of the target. I never passed up a chance to put on a safety harness, step out on a chopper’s skid and lean out into space, so I took the assignment.

Because I couldn’t shoot straight down, I ended up with almost a roomful of 8×10 prints that didn’t quite line up when they were spread out on the floor. It was acceptable to the guy who signed my check, though. As far as I know, nothing was ever developed on that plot of land and I never did find out what the mission was for. With modern equipment and software, it would have been a piece of cake.

Will float on columns of gravel

When I was talking with the friendly workers, I asked if they were pouring concrete columns for support or if they were pile-driving them. They said, neither. The equipment that looked like drilling rigs were used to bore holes in the ground, then gravel was poured into them with that funnel-looking thing so that the floor would ride on columns of gravel instead of concrete pillars.

“Wouldn’t be easier just to excavate the space, then put in the gravel and compact it?”

“That’s what we asked, but we were told that this is supposed to be more earthquake-proof.”

I’ll take their word for it. It’s an interesting technique that I haven’t run into in Florida where earthquakes are about the only calamity we DON’T face on a regular basis.

Mill Street has a twist in it

Because good highway practice is to have roads intersect at a 90-degree angle, Mill Street will have a curve to the left to tie it into the new Main Street. The houses on the right will have a service road or driveway to give them access to the street. Looks like Mill Hill isn’t going to be as neat as it used to be.

The guys I talked with had done a lot of the demolition. They said it was a lot tougher than they thought it would be and took longer than anticipated. “There were a lot of stone foundations and things we didn’t know about in advance. Down there by the pump house, there was a whole lot of concrete and even a couple of old smoke stacks.”

He was young enough that he didn’t know that there had once been a huge factory there.

A massive concrete pour has taken place since these photos were taken. You can read Melissa Miller’s version of it in The Missourian. Her construction workers told even better stories than mine did.

August 31, 2011December 28, 2014

Morrison Ice and Fuel Falls to Casino

When I posted an aerial shot of the Casino area and one taken from the river levee, I received two comments and an email that sent me looking for a better vantage point. (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)

From Keith Robinson: Ken, if you notice, there is a brick structure in the lower left of the above aerial photo. That structure was built around 1908 and was the Morrison Ice and Fuel Company. It remained as such until sometime around 1931, when it is identified on Sanborn maps as Riverside Ice and Fuel Company. This business made ice for sale to city residents and also served the local railroad by providing ice for the old ice-cooled reefer cars.

From Drew Wright: Ken, there is a great view of the construction progress from Mill Street, at the upper left of your aerial shot.

From Keith Robinson: Ken, I drove down to Cape last night to visit my brother, Karl, and dad. I took the time to drive by the construction site and discovered the old building is no longer there. Here today, gone tomorrow. I am even more interested in any ground level pictures that you might have.

Morrison Ice and Fuel is gone

Keith was right. When I went to the Mill Street vantage point, there was a big empty space where the brick building south of the pumping station used to be. The new paving in the foreground is the Main Street relocation. I’ll have more photos of it in the next few days.

Keith is a real bulldog

Keith might have been a Central High Tiger in the old days, but he’s turned into a bulldog when it comes to area history. As I’ve mentioned before, he’s a model railroader who is attempting to recreate everything connected with rails between Nash Road and Cape Rock. Because the F.M. Morrison building hugs the old Frisco Railroad tracks, it’s within his area of interest. BNSF conductor Randy Graviett gave me a friendly wave from his caboose this spring. (OK, he’s not exactly waving in THIS photo, but he DID wave.)

As an example of his diligence, I present this pdf document of F M Morrison links he sent telling the history of the nondescript brick building.

Added sand and coal to the ice business

F.M. Morrison decided to buy the best equipment available to corner the ice market in the Cape Girardeau area in 1903 when he established The Morrison Ice and Cold Storage Co. In 1906, he dropped the cold-storage business to concentrate on the wholesale and retail ice and fuel business. It wasn’t long before he added coal and sand to his holdings. These photos were taken in 2009, long before I had any idea what the building was used for.

Henry Vogelsang renamed it Riverside Ice and Fuel Co.

In 1922, Henry H. Vogelsang bought the business and renamed it Riverside Ice and Fuel Co. In 1928, 21 horses burned to death in a barn at Riverside. The damage, about a third of which was covered by insurance, was estimated at $5,000. The cause of the fire wasn’t immediately known.

Five businesses hit; total take: $35

A 1932 Missourian story reported that “Burglars ransacked five establishments in Cape Girardeau over the weekend, wrecking two safes and making off with only about $35; places entered were Cape Sand Co., Sides Oil Co., a gasoline station owned by Simpson Oil Co., Riverside Ice and Fuel Co. oil station and the Cape Girardeau Memorial Works office.”

That was a lot of burglarizing for such a small return.

Riverside became Pure Ice Company

Pure Ice Co., which was established May 26, 1926, on 314 S. Ellis Street (and still produces ice), eventually bought Riverside. When refrigerators first started coming out, Pure Ice sold Coolerator iceboxes, but marketed them as a replacement for the old-fashioned wooden iceboxes (with a $5 trade-in), not as refrigerators as we know them today. Home ice delivery went on in Cape until the 1960s.

The iceman was a familiar character in Cape. There was a surprisingly long obituary for Sam Randol, “well-known colored ice dealer. Randol was among the better colored citizens of Cape Girardeau and stood high both among the people of his race as well as among the white citizens. He had been in the ice business here since a young man and was known by most every family in the city.”

August 26, 2011September 18, 2011

St. Vincent Silhouette

There was a time when I experimented with high contrast photos and silhouettes. It was a fascination that didn’t last long. This church looked familiar, but I wasn’t exactly sure where or what it was.

Definitely St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church

There’s no doubt that it’s St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church on Main Street across from the Red House as confirmed by this photo I ran in November. There’s no mistaking those squared, open crosses below the steeple.

How do you make a silhouette?

Pick the right subject. It has to be something that has a distinctive shape.
It has to have a strong light behind it.
Underexpose the foreground, intentionally letting it go dark.
When printing it on paper, pick a high contrast photographic paper. That will cause the blacks to go black and the whites to go white, while eliminating most gray tones. (Does anybody still do darkroom work anymore?)
When producing it for the screen, do the same thing. Make the whites whiter and the blacks blacker until pure black and pure white are all that are left.