Cape Girardeau History and Photos

November 23, 2014

Ridge Road Microwave Tower

Towers like this one on Ridge Road in Jackson used to dot the skyline. There was even one in downtown Cape next to the telephone company building on Broadway across from the Broadway Theater.

They were AT&T’s backbone for long distance communications. In the days before fiber optic cable, your phone calls would go from point to point by cable or by microwave.

Made to withstand nuclear blasts

A fascinating website that touches on AT&T’s Long Lines said that the microwave installations were used for both civil and government communications. Most were built in the 1950s and 1960s during the height of the Cold War.

The buildings housing the electronics supporting the towers was hardened against a nuclear blast and in some cases were placed underground. The towers themselves were engineered to withstand all but a close (within five miles) blast.

Protected against fallout

The microwave horns mounted on the towers were covered with a protective shield to keep out not only the elements, but radioactive fallout. The buildings were shielded with copper to protect the equipment inside against the electronic pulse generated by a nuclear explosion. Foot-thick concrete walls protected the vital electronics and people inside the base installations. Thick copper ground wires went deep into the bedrock.

There was a concrete tower facility about halfway down U.S. 1 going to Key West. I always figured that was my hurricane shelter of last resort if I could ever get to it. Jackson must not have rated so high on the nuclear threat list that it justified the extraordinary construction.

Bandwidth was the killer

The thing that killed the Long Lines towers was the demand for bandwidth. A microwave link can carry only a small percentage of the capacity of a single strand of fiber optic cable. When the Internet exploded, the demand for bigger “pipes” exploded with it. After the microwave equipment was taken down, towers, like this one, were purchased by outfits like American Tower, which rents space for cellular and other antennas.

Cellular stations take up a lot less room than the old analog switch gear used by AT&T, so the big buildings aren’t needed.

Communications: foundation of democracy

The author of the website said he saw an AT&T motto in one of the towers: “Communications is the foundation of democracy.” In those days, hard to believe today, the writer said the Long Lines crews went to work knowing that if nuclear war came, they would probably come out of their hardened facilities to find their families long gone.

The construction in the background is a new school being built. You can click on the photos to make them larger.

November 21, 2014

Pfister’s in Treasure Trove

Buddy Terry Hopkins stopped by the house when we were both in Cape and dropped off a box of photos. His dad, Laverne H. Hopkins, worked for General Sign Company for years, Terry said. His specialty was drawing people and objects, as opposed to lettering and striping.

You have to remember that signs in those days were individually painted or lettered: they weren’t mass-produced like the ones you see today. A General Sign employee would take a picture of his work to prove to the customer that it was done.

The box contains hundreds of those iconic photos of signs, store fronts and logos we grew up seeing (and probably not really noticing). It’s going to take me a long time to scan and index the photos, but I thought Pfister’s Drive-In would be a good first candidate. Cape Electrical Supply and Cape Memorial Company are in the background, and I think the large brick building on the left might have been the Coke bottling plant.

Click on the photo to make it larger. Here’s a shot of the drive-in and the area from the air, by the way.

November 20, 2014May 9, 2021

Left Both Hearth and Husband

When I took a mugshot of this house at 300 Good Hope Street, I did it “just because” it might not be there the next time I get to Cape. It never dawned on me there was an interesting twist to the tale of the building.

A search of The Missourian archives turned up a couple of dry briefs about Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Taveggia going here or there or having visitors from out of town in the mid-1930s. In 1940, Mrs. Hugo Lang, Jr., of that address underwent an emergency appendectomy at Southeast Missouri Hospital.

Robert Felix Wichterich and Elma Taylor House

A Google search was more productive. It turned up a National Register of Historic places form that has more architectural detail than you can shake a paint stirrer at. Follow the link if that’s your thing.

I like the human story better.

House incorparated “modern” conveniences

Dr. Robert Wichterich married Elma Taylor, daughter of J. W. Taylor, in 1902. Four years later the Cape Girardeau Democrat reported that Dr. Wichterich was having a new family dwelling (the present house) built on Good Hope Street.

The extent of Mrs. Wichterich’s input into the design is unknown, but the house certainly incorporates conveniences that a wife (or husband) of the period would be likely to appreciate. The servant’s room with a separate back staircase was to be expected in a house for the well-to-do, but the functional step-saving kitchen, accessible laundry areas beyond the public rooms, modern heating, plumbing and electrical systems and other amenities added up to a relatively progressive early 20th century house.

An explosive departure

Nonetheless, after sixteen years of marriage, Mrs. Wichterich found reasons to leave both hearth and husband; greater freedom for women was another aspect of the Progressive Era that championed Colonial Revival architecture.

Before vacating her progressive new house in 1918, however, according to local history, Mrs. Wichterich stoked the boiler and opened the valves on the shiny gold radiators to the maximum, eventually causing a blast that deposited sections of the plaster ceiling in soggy clumps.

About a year after his wife’s rather dramatic exit, Dr. Wichterich became ill and died at his medical office.

Hugo A. Lang and his wife Anna bought the house from Dr. Wichterich a few months after his wife left. The property remained in the Lang family until the death of Hugo A. Lang, Jr., in 1993.

Things you don’t expect to find

I love stories that uncover human foibles. just like discovering that Cape’s most notorious house of ill repute was located across the street from the police station.

Shameless plug department

We’re getting into the season when folks are thinking about buying gifts. There’s a tiny yellow button at the top of the page that will allow you to make a donation to the site. You don’t even have to put a bow on it.

It’s a painless way for you to help me keep the computer running and the gas tank filled to bring you these stories.

November 19, 2014

Mary Protect Us

I’m not big on religious shrines and the like, but I’ve always liked seeing this one on the west side of Highway 61 between Ste. Genevieve and St. Mary. It, like some of the other landmarks along the road, signaled that I’ve survived the big city of St. Louis and I’m getting closer to home.

I just “drove” about 60 miles using Google Streetview to confirm the actual location of the shrine without seeing it. I’ll have to let someone else tell me exactly where it is.