Cape Girardeau Downtown and Riverfront Archives

March 28, 2011April 5, 2015

Main Street, 1967

Here’s a semi-mystery. The negative sleeve just had a date – March 27, 1967 – written on the front of it. The setting is Main Street, but I don’t know why the two photos were taken. There’s a huge gap in the Google News Archive for the month of March 1967, so I couldn’t even search for them there.

Cherrydale Farms confections

These women were set up in front of what looks like a hardware or sporting goods store. When I flip the photo around so I can read the printing on the signs on the table, one reads, “YOU can help us meet our GOAL. Cherrydale Farms confections ON SALE HERE!”

I’d never heard of Cherrydale Farms, but they’re still around on the web selling fundraiser supplies.

The sign on the side of the table says “…Easter Eggs.” I hope they made their goal.

Main Street looking north

If the sign on Cape Federal is correct, the photo was taken at 4:08 in the afternoon on a day that was chilly, but not cold and windy enough to really bundle up.

I don’t see much of a news peg in this photo. There’s a plywood wall on the left side of the photo. That’s about where the St. Charles Hotel would have been before it was torn down. I may have taken this to burn up film before I processed the roll.

March 21, 2011January 3, 2012

Cape’s Sewage Treatment Plant

I’ve been seeing stories pop up that Cape Girardeau residents are going to vote on whether or not to build a new waste water treatment plant by 2014. You can read more about it on the city’s website. I don’t have a dog in this hunt, so I’m not going to weigh in.

I flew over the treatment plant last fall. It looked smaller than I remembered it.

Front page story with byline

I did a front page Missourian story on Aug. 15, 1967, back in the day when we called it a “sewage treatment plant.” Not only did it run on 1A, but it ran with a byline, something that didn’t happen often.

Overall, it wasn’t badly written. The lead is a little long – “Cape Girardeau’s sewage treatment plant’s most important function is anti-pollution, but a byproduct of its operations is proving to be a substantial help to area farmers who literally reap the benefits when they harvest their crops.”

Treated sewage made excellent fertilizer

“After the raw sewage – which once had a direct line to the Mississippi River – is detoured, detained, treated and dried, the solid wastes make excellent fertilizer, farmers say.”

I loved stats and obscure factoids: “…about 35,000 pounds of sludge rolls off the plant’s 12-foot-wide vacuum coilfilter every other day, Tom Sides, supervisor, pointed out; this amounts to about 200 tons a month or about 7,200 tons in the three years the plant has been in operation.”

You don’t know how hard it is to write a story like this without slipping in some bad puns. John Blue was the only guy I ever worked for who would have given me this assignment without making some comment about it being a “[deleted]” story.

Some odor after rains

I quoted farmers Ervin Hobbs, Fred Theile and Mrs. Denver Perkins. All said their yields had increased. Mr. Thiele reported “there is some odor – particularly after it rains – but there aren’t any other farmers too close to here and it doesn’t bother anyone.”

Dr. S.B. Beecher of the State Public Health office in Poplar Bluff said that the state has never objected to the use of solid treated waste. Some St. Louis nurseries even used the liquid sewage, he said.

Came out as felt-like material

Cape County Health Officer Marvin Campbell was less sold. “I don’t know how adequate the treatment is, I don’t know whether all the pathogenic organisms are being killed; I don’t know the strength of the chemicals being used, and I don’t know if any tests are being made to see if the organisms are being killed.”

Raw sewage flowed into the plant at the rate of 2,500 to 3,500 gallons a minute. By the time it got through the complex system of pumps, still wells and filters, it came out as clear water which was “almost drinkable” or as a slightly-damp, felt-like material. The latter is what the farmers used.

Two employees in addition to Mr. Sides work at the plant: Elmer J. Perry, operator, and Cecil Bierschwal, truck driver.

February 17, 2011November 20, 2011

Sportsman’s Club 39 N. Water St.

I shot the doorway to the Sportsman’s Club at 39 North Water Street when I was going through one of my periodic “peeling paint” phases. I didn’t know anything about the Sportsman’s Club, I just thought it was neat. It was probably shot around 1966.

Sportsman’s Club in 2009?

When I went walking down Water Street in 2009, I carried a copy of the photo with me to see if I could shoot a before and after picture. I thought it looked like it had become the back entrance to Port Cape. The door post at the right looks the same, only in better condition; there are two courses of brick on the left side of the door and an open space with a foundation stone sticking out.

39 North Water St. collapsed in 1968

I was surprised to run across an October 16, 1968, Missourian story that said the front part of the building at 39 North Water Street had collapsed. Workers for Gerhardt Construction said the two-story brick structure apparently caved in from the roof because of its old age.

How could something collapse in 1968, but still be around in 2009? This aerial photo of that block, taken before 1968, shows the three-story building that became Port Cape on the right. To its left, next to the parking lot that looks like a missing tooth, is a two-story building with three windows. Sandwiched in the middle is a two-story building with five windows.

It sounds like the 39 Water Street building collapsed from the middle in, spilling some bricks into the street, but leaving at least the front wall partially intact. It must have been rebuilt as a one-story building.

Problems with “Negro” Sunday night dances

Harold Abernathy, Oscar Abernathy, Charles Wilson, Harry Lee and Maso Meacham, representing the Sportsman’s Club, 39 North Water, an organization seeking to help Negro teen-age youngsters, called on the city council, The Missourian reported Dec. 9, 1958, using distinctions that signal how segregated the city was going into the 60s.

A Sunday night dance sponsored by the group was halted when there was a complaint. The council explained that city ordinance prohibits public dances on Sunday. If the organization was private, the said, did not sell tickets and held a party as a private organization, that was another matter.

The visitors said it was a private group designed to raise funds to provide recreation for teen-age Negro youths. Programs for the youths are held on Friday nights during the school year and on Tuesday and Friday in the summer, they said.

Caught fire in 1939

Cape’s downtown was threatened by fire when three business buildings caught fire, The Missourian reported Feb. 27, 1939. The blaze started on the second floor and involved the Co-op drug store, Fred Bark’s cafe, the Louis Suedekum cafe and beer parlor and a rooming house entrance on the Main Street side. On the Water Street side, were the Charles Young and Ben Edwards Negro cafes.

The paper said the fire apparently started on one of the Young Negro rooming houses, how or exactly where hadn’t been determined at the time of the writing.

Mr. and Mrs. Barks, who lived above their cafe, were momentarily trapped there. Mr. Barks, who hadn’t been feeling well, was in bed. Mrs. Barks rushed upstairs, using a rear stairway, then on fire, to call him. This was the only exit, and it was shut off by fire and smoke before they could escape. Firemen had to place a ladder on the front of the building to get them to safety.

The third floor of the Young building was mostly gutted and some damage was done to the second floor. Since the aerial shows that it was only two stories in the middle 60s, I’m guessing that the building lost its third story during its repair.

February 10, 2011December 7, 2011

Tuf-Nut and Other Pocket Knives

I’ve got a small wooden box on the dresser where I keep “heirlooms.” Any thief who mistakes it for a jewelry box is going to be disappointed. Well, now that I think of it, it has three rings in it: a Cub Scout ring, a Boy Scout ring and my Philmont Scout Ranch ring.

Tuf-Nut knives came from Buckner-Ragsdale

It also contains these two knives. Probably every boy in Cape had at least one of these Tuf-Nut knives. They came with blue jeans bought at the Buckner-Ragsdale store on the corner of Broadway and Main Street.

Have you earned your “Totin’ Chip?”

The Tuf-nut and the Boy Scout knife that dangled from a belt clip were rites of passage. You were supposed to have a “Totin’ Chip” before you could use any wood tool like a knife, saw or axe.

The wooden-handled pocket knife was a gift from my Grandfather, Roy Welch, when I was about eight years old. The handle was chipped when I got it and the blade had been sharpened so many times that it was about a third smaller than when new, but I still treasured it.