Cape Girardeau History and Photos
News photos that have grown whiskers and have become history
I’ve been setting aside photos I shot in Trail of Tears State Park in the 1960s, but they’re back in Florida. Here’s a gallery of photos I took this weekend in about an hour.
We’ll do some serious reporting down the road. This is just to give you a taste of what the park looks like coming out of the winter.
Click on any photo to make it larger,then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.
Arena Park is about 1.2 miles from our house. When the wind is right, we used to be able to hear the stock car races at the park. This was back in the days before central air conditioning, so our windows were open with a big attic fan providing what little cooling breeze was out there.
Dad and I weren’t what you would call car people, but there was a period when we’d go out to catch the races. I don’t know if it was because he knew some of the racers or if it was just something to do to kill time in the evening.
(At least, I THINK his name was Tom.) I recognize at least one of the drivers as a guy who worked in the composing room at The Missourian.
When I did a story on a telephone company repairman, Lester Harris, a number of people mentioned that he raced cars. He shows up in several photos.
I knew I had a few stock car photos kicking around, but I didn’t know that I had this many. Some of them are of marginal quality because they were shot at night with flash at long distances, but I’m including them to round out a portrait of the event.
These photos were taken in 1966. I shot a scuffle at the track that ran earlier this year.
Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.
I see in The Missourian that the city is going to pull the plug on the Capaha Park swimming pool, literally. While rooting around trying to find pool pictures, I ran across these kids picking the lagoon instead of the pool.
The top shot feels vaguely familiar, so it might have run in the paper. There wasn’t a date on the negative sleeve, so I didn’t have an easy way to track it down. There were kids swimming in a pool in other frames, but it wasn’t the Cape pool. It looked like it might have been a swimming class taught at a local motel pool.
I’m still digging for those pool photos. I know I’ve got the stuff from the Millie the Duck series, Lila’s synchronized swimming team, swimming classes, swim meets and diving competition. Be patient.
If you DO need a Capaha Swimming Pool fix, here’s some photos of a dance party held there one night.
I know these race photos were taken at Arena Park, but I don’t know anything else about them. I’m going to guess they date back to 1967, only because I don’t think I had any telephoto lenses long enough to shoot anything like this before that.
Since I don’t have any information, I’ll toss them all into a photo gallery. I’ll let you fill in the blanks. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.
