Photos around Cape Archives

June 25, 2010April 11, 2021

Rialto Theater Roof Collapses

Wife Lila was having breakfast this morning with a gaggle of her 1966 classmates when Bill East casually mentioned that he had heard that the roof of the Rialto Theater had collapsed. (She’s the one on the left in this 1966 Girardot ad, by the way.)

I had a hard time believing that because I had been inside the place in March. I was in the Old Town Cape offices trying to convince them that CapeCentralHigh.com would be a great place for them to advertise (they said they were non-profit. I said I was worse than non-profit. I was losing money, but that’s another story).

The Rialto holds special memories for me

I mentioned to Toni Eftink that the building next to their office, the old Rialto theater, had special meaning for me, because that’s where I met my future wife. (You can read the whole story by following this link. It involves Jim Stone, a coin flip and the world’s worst movie.)

Because Jim Stone was dating Carol Klarsfeld, whose mother owned the theater, we had the run of the place. Jim loved popping the popcorn (which had real butter in those days, by the way) and we got to watch the projectionist swap reels on the fly.

First a bell would ring signaling it was getting close to the end of the reel (not every projectionist stayed awake during the whole movie). Then there would be an almost imperceptible flash on the screen. When you saw a second flash, you started the second reel running, stopped the first reel and turned off the carbon arc that shined through the film.

Seats got carted out

Toni said I should have been there last week, when they were carting out the old theater seats because they had gotten wet and moldy when a sump pump leaked.

I talked my way into the building. It was pitch black. The only light I had was a small pocket flashlight that kept me from tripping over anything. I pointed my camera into the darkness and let flash. I didn’t have a clue what I had taken a picture of until I got back home. That’s why there are some crazy angles in the photos.

Looking back toward the projection booth, lobby entrance and bathrooms

The place was pretty much gutted. The projectors had long been removed, but you could still see where the concession stand had been.

Decorative mirrors still there

Walking toward the theater, you passed a mirrored wall, then had a choice of the left or right side of the seating.

The outside of the Rialto looks nice

The exterior of the building looks as nice today as it did in this photo shot in October 2009. I drove completely around the building looking for any evidence of damage, but didn’t see any.

Just before I dismissed the tip as some kind of Bill East caffeine-induced fantasy, I decided to check the buildings on either side of the old theater. The Old Town Cape folks were out doing whatever Old Town Cape folks do, because their offices were dark and locked.

The sky (or roof) IS falling

I walked into the business on the other side and asked for the Person in Charge of Rumor Control to quash a rumor that the roof of the Rialto had collapsed.

The rumor – apologies to Bill for doubting him – was true. I asked if there was any way I could get a photo of it. Nice Rumor Control Lady said the only way to see it was to go upstairs and stand on her desk.

I did.

Blame it on a storm

The roof collapsed around 1 p.m. on June 17, possibly as a result of a storm with high winds and heavy rain. No one was injured and the adjacent buildings weren’t damaged.

Lots of palm sweat in that place

Now that I think back on it, not only did I meet my future wife at the Rialto, I think my first real high school date took place in the theater. I’ll have to check with Shari Stiver to confirm that. (I’m sure it was less memorable for her than it was to me.)

If every other adolescent male was like I was, it’s no wonder why the sump pump failed after all these years. It must have pumped a Mississippi River of palm sweat from nervous high school boys.

Gallery of photos

Here’s a collection of photos over the years. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left of right side of the photo to move through the gallery. I’d have written more, but I’m already an hour and 13 minutes late to the class reunion.

Homecoming parade passed in front of the Rialto

You can see the front of the Rialto in its heyday in these photos of the 1964 SEMO Homecoming Parade.

June 25, 2010April 3, 2016

Gordonville Grill: Good Food, Good Value

I’m sure there are some Central High School folks in town for the reunion who are searching for somewhere with good food reasonably priced.

When I was in town this spring, Mother and I decided to try some places we’d never visited. I wrote about Mario’s Pasta House earlier. (I’ve eaten there twice on this trip and it keeps getting better.) [Editor’s note: Mario’s has moved to Cape, on Broadway just west of Southeast Hospital, but it’s as good as ever.]

The second place is Gordonville Grill. It’s close to Jackson, Cape Girardeau and the metropolis of Dutchtown. There’s a map at the bottom of the page.

Owner Andy Hancock

Andy Hancock and his wife, Amy, opened the Gordonville Grill in 2007. “Ninety percent of restaurants fail in the first three years. We’ve been here four years, so I think we’re going to make it.” Based on what I’ve seen in the eight or ten times I’ve eaten there, the couple have a solid customer base that is growing as friends tell friends about the place.

“We do traditional advertising and have worked the Internet, but most of our business comes from word of mouth,” Andy explained. “We get them in here the first time, we win them over, then they tell their friends. That’s our advertising plan. In a small town, it’s our experience that if you’re the first to know of a place and introduce something new to a friend, then you’re kind of a hero.”

Gordonville Grill offers comfort foods

Andy grew up in Jackson and his wife lived in several small towns (like there’s anything else around) in Southeast Missouri. Both worked at Outback Steakhouse. He majored in business and marketing at SEMO.

They found that Cape Girardeans were initially drawn to the novelty of what Andy calls the Big Box restaurants in the early to mid-90s, but are eager to try small, privately-owned businesses now if they present good food at reasonable prices in attractive surroundings.

“I can’t compete with the big box stores with their purchasing power,” he said, “but I can provide food made from scratch with quality ingredients. We provide the personal touch. We make ‘comfort foods,’ like Beef Stroganoff and Sloppy Joes, food I grew up with.”

You can get more information, including their menu here at their website. Warning: turn your speakers down. For some reason, websites in Cape insist on launching audio as soon as the page loads.

Gordonville Grill building built in 1912

Andy said the building was built in 1912 as a general store. A Missourian story from June 21, 1938, announced that W.H. Bangert has sold his general merchandise business in Gordonville to W. A. Clark of Sikeston.

He and Mrs. Bangert operated the store for 43 years and four months, during which time the store became widely known as a place where goods were as represented and prices reasonable. In the last decades, the business was housed in a modern brick building, with residence flats in the second story and located on the most prominent corner in the village.

There was a follow-up story a month later that said Mr. Bangert, 64, was going to “take it easy” after selling his store by operating two farms, the Gordonville Post Office and filling the office of bank president. Follow this link to read more about Mr. Bangert, an interesting character.

What’s on the menu?

I can say that I haven’t been disappointed with anything I’ve ordered. The catfish were fixed just the way I like them, lightly breaded and crispy; the fresh-sliced fried okra is a pleasing appetizer; the Ultimate Nachos were a little different than what you normally get, but I learned to appreciate them by the bottom of the pile; the Flat Iron Steak was tender and tasty, and the Prime Rib was everything you would hope it to be.

{Editor’s note: I’m going to have to temper my unqualified endorsement. My kid, Mother and I had several bad experiences there, so I scratched it off my dining list. Some of my readers say it is still good, so I may give it another shot. Caveat emptor.]

Motorcycles and matrimony

While we were eating there this weekend, we saw what appeared to be a wedding party in formal gear headed up to one of the three private dining rooms upstairs at the same time a dozen and a half motorcycles pulled in to fill up the patio with bikers and their passengers.

How to find the Gordonville Grill

View Larger Map

June 21, 2010December 21, 2021

L.V. Steinhoff, My Dad

When I ran across one of my Dad’s scrapbooks, I was immediately drawn to this resolute-looking young man on his 20th birthday. He had a signature, even then, that was unique. I tried to emulate it for years, but never came close and eventually adopted an illegible scrawl to sign checks and memos.

Here’s a guy not even old enough to vote who is going to leave his literal mark on the world in the form of roads, bridges and airfields.

Who needs Tonka Trucks?

My Dad had the greatest toys in the world. While other kids were playing with toy trucks, I was riding on bulldozers, hanging onto the sides of draglines and sniffing the magic smell of freshly-turned earth and diesel fumes. When I catch a whiff of that half a century later, I can close my eyes and hear the clack-clack-clack of the steel tracks, the throaty roar when a diesel engine cranks up and the slippery sound steel cables make when they play out over massive pulleys.

OSHA would freak out today, but he gave me a basic set of safety tips and trusted me to have the good sense to follow them. When I hadn’t even reached double digits, let alone my teens, I separated debris from gravel going up conveyor belts, climbed up crane booms and crawled under railroad cars. (You can read about that here.)

The family was involved in his work

One of the first pictures in his Steinhoff, Kirkwood and Joiner scrapbook was two-year-old me holding a $4,219 check for road work done on Route SB in Reynolds County at Ellington, Mo.

Because Dad’s work took him all over the state, he was away from home a lot. When I was about a year old, Mother told him that this wasn’t going to work out unless we were able to be with him. They bought a small trailer that moved from job to job about every four months.

Mother was telling me this afternoon that it was a great life. She met lots of interesting people and made a lot of friends. We lived in the trailer until I started school. For years, the trailer would be what I’d turn in when teachers told us to draw a picture of our house.

Dad was a handsome man

For a man who spent most of his time pushing dirt around, he could put on a suit and look quite dapper. Here he is in 1960, posing with the family’s 1959 Buick LaSabre station wagon that we took on our epic vacation to Florida.

Everybody got involved

No matter what the project, it was likely the whole family would be involved, even if it was (in my case) shooting photos of it.

Dad and Mother in the back yard in Cape

By the time I went away to college, Dad was starting to think about retirement. He and Mother bought a trailer over on Kentucky Lake. Dad got more and more involved in Scouting activities with my brothers and all of them traveled for fun, rather than to figure out where the next construction project was going to be.

No good thing lasts forever

Dad and his partner, Jim Kirkwood, were in the process of winding down the company in the summer of 1977. Dad was looking forward to his garden in Dutchtown and to spending time on Kentucky Lake.

I had postponed my summer vacation for a couple of weeks to get my first photo department budget done after being named Director of Photography at The Palm Beach Post. I was punching away at the adding machine late one night when I looked up to see Lila and John Lopinot, my best friend, standing in the doorway of my office.

I could tell from their expressions that this wasn’t a social call. They cut to the chase.

“Your dad suffered a heart attack this afternoon at Kentucky Lake. Mark was there and tried CPR, but it was too late. He was already gone. He had been carrying sandbags to build a sandbox for Matt to play in when we came home.” He was 60 years old.

The next few days were a blur. The world will remember that week, because it’s the same one in which Elvis died.

I don’t miss Elvis.

June 16, 2010September 26, 2021

St. Charles Hotel: General Grant Slept Here

I shot this photo of birds flying around inside the St. Charles Hotel on March 11, 1967, and it ran on the front page of The Missourian on March 13. It had been sold Dec. 16, 1965, and was in the process of being razed when I took the picture. The roof had been removed and the interior was being gutted.

Gen. Grant slept here

Gen. U.S. Grant was registered in Room 5 for 50 days during the Civil War. Carrie Nation, of axe-wielding, saloon-busting fame, was a guest in 1907.

The building was completed in January of 1861. It was THE place to stay at the time. It was four stories tall, had verandas, an observatory, views of the river and large ventilated rooms.

The rooms had electric fans, according to this sign taken between Cape and Jackson April 13, 1967. Of course, by this time, the roof was off and ventilation was plentiful. I wonder what the $1.50 room looked like.

I stayed in an old hotel with spacious rooms in Piedmont for $2 a night during that era, so it’s possible that you COULD get a room that cheaply. The bathroom was down the hall, but it WAS inside.

The Missourian carried a notice of sale July 23, 1965. In it, it mentioned that the hotel building was four stories tall, had 70 feet of frontage, 50 rooms to rent and three tenants on the first floor (with written leases expiring at different times).

St. Charles Drug Store

The St. Charles Drug Store must have been one of the tenants, because a story on Jan. 18, 1967, said that the store was moving to the southwest corner of Broadway and Main St., to the building formerly occupied by the Singer Company. The move was going to require extensive renovations to the ground and second floors of the property.

Here’s a 2009 photo of the corner of the property where the Singer Company / St. Charles Drugstore was located.

Sterling’s replaced St. Charles Hotel

I shot this photo of the Sterling Store in January 1968. It must have been a cold day, because there is snow on the car parked in front of the store.

When I was home the last couple of times, I walked all of Main St., Broadway and Water St. shooting landmark buildings. The Sterling store must have been non-memorable enough that I didn’t waste any electrons on it.

Links to other photos

The Singer Company building and the St. Charles show up in the backgrounds of earlier stories I’ve posted.

[Editor’s note: things will be a bit slow here for a couple of days. I’m loading up the van to head back to Cape for the reunion, so I may not be posting until I get set up at my Mother’s house again. Hope to see a bunch of you there.]