Cape Girardeau History and Photos

May 28, 2014

Ducking the Question

After being taken to task for calling some web-footed honkers “ducks” the other day, I’m going to hedge my bets and say that I was just a little bit out of position when I shot these water fowl headed to a pond.

I saw them climbing up an embankment, but they were badly backlit. By the time they got into a little bit better angle, they were just about to disappear over the top. I barely had time to pop off a couple not-too-sharp frames.

You can click on the photo to make it larger, but that’ll just make it fuzzier.

“We got us a convoy”

Looks like a good place to go back to 1976 and C.W. McCall:

“Ah, breaker one-nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck. You gotta copy on me, Pig Pen, c’mon? Ah, yeah, 10-4, Pig Pen, fer shure, fer shure. By golly, it’s clean clear to Flag Town, c’mon. Yeah, that’s a big 10-4 there, Pig Pen, yeah, we definitely got the front door, good buddy. Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy.“

May 28, 2014May 20, 2021

Louis Houck’s Statuary Collection

Yesterday we showed the exterior of the old First Baptist Church, now Southeast Missouri State University’s Aleen Vogel Wehking Alumni Center. Today, as promised, we’ll “go inside” to see the Barbara Hope Kem Statuary Hall, an auditorium created from the former church’s sanctuary.

I thought the layout of the sanctuary area where the statues are displayed looked a little strange for a church. Two of my readers commented that was because the banks wanted to hedge their bets, so they required that the building be constructed so it could be used as a theater in case the church couldn’t pay off the loan. The balcony, Liz Lockhart wrote, even had space for a projection booth, should it ever be needed.

Plaster casts came from 1904 World’s Fair

The statues and other pieces of artwork were bought by Louis Houck after he saw the August Gerber’s reproductions of classical, medieval, renaissance, and modern art works displayed at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. He acquired the casts for $1,888.25.

Lauren Kellogg Disalvo’s master’s thesis, THE AURA OF REPRODUCTION: PLASTER CAST COLLECTIONS AT THE 1904 LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION, contains a large section on Houck’s purchase.

Disalvo writes that Houck’s donation of the statuary stipulated that a room be dedicated to them where they could be permanently displayed. The display opened in March of 1905 with the statues in Academic Hall.

Statues damaged and destroyed

The casts remained there until 1959, when they were dispersed all over campus to make room for additional classroom space. They suffered from benign neglect over the years, with many being damaged or destroyed. One of my readers wrote that he had seen broken statues in the basement of Academic Hall when he was a student.

(For all I know, Venus de Milo might have had both her arms before SEMO got hold of her.)

Judy Crow takes up the cause

In 1975, my friend, Judy Crow, Missourian librarian, wrote a story bemoaning the fate of the Houck collection.

The result was, Disalvo writes, “the plaster casts were gathered, restored and transferred to the Southeast Missouri Regional Museum. The casts remained in the museum until it relocated to the new Rosemary Berkel and Harry L. Crisp II Southeast Missouri Regional Museum. According to the museum director, Dr. Stanley Grand, the plaster casts were not included in this new museum since the new museum would focus on the archaeology, history, and fine arts of the Southeast Missouri region.”

I’m not surprised that the River Campus, which knocked down the handball courts, one of the Cape’s oldest landmarks, couldn’t find room for Houck’s donation. The irony is the university probably wouldn’t be in Cape Girardeau today had Houck not used his influence to rebuild Academic Hall after the first one burned down.

Class of 1957 raised $100,000

In 2007, the Class of 1957 raised $100,000 to have the remaining 38 surviving casts restored and moved to the Aleen Vogel Wehking Alumni Center, formerly the First Baptist Church, where they now line the walls of an auditorium area, called the Barbara Hope Kem Statuary Hall.

The display is open to the public. Admission is free. I think Houck would approve.

Louis Houck Statuary photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

May 26, 2014May 27, 2014

First Baptist Church – Wehking Alumni Center

When I was working at The Athens Messenger with Bob Rogers, we had a technique we used when we wanted to goof off. We’d shoot something like a old general store in a decaying coal town and run a photo of the outside of the building along with a brief description and a promise “tomorrow we’ll go inside.”

I’m going to do the same thing with the Aleen Vogel Wehking Alumni Center, formerly the First Baptist Church at 926 Broadway. Tomorrow, “we’ll go inside” to see the plaster reproductions of ancient, Medieval and modern works of art that Louis Houck bought at the end of 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

Third First Baptist Church

This building was really the third home of the First Baptist Church.

The original First Baptist Church was organized Aug. 13, 1834, with a membership of nine. I did a post about Cape’s first Protestant church across from the Common Pleas Courthouse in 2012.
The church’s next home was at Broadway and Spanish. I photographed the steeple of the church being painted in 1967.
Here’s the bell that was salvaged from a sunken steamboat and used at the first church.
After the university bought this building, the congregation moved out to 1289 Lexington Avenue.

Billy Sunday swelled ranks

The congregation had swelled to 719 by the time it moved to 926 Broadway. Part of the growth – an increase of 258 – was attributed to Billy Sunday’s revival in Cape in 1926. Here’s The Missourian’s front page account of Billy Sunday’s arrival in town.

University bought building in 2003

The university bought the church in 2003 for $3.5 million. The congregation relocated in 2006, and the university remodeled portions of the building in order to occupy it in 2007. The stained glass windows remained.

Photo gallery of Wehking Alumni Center / First Baptist Church

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery. And, don’t forget, we’ll go inside tomorrow.

May 26, 2014April 17, 2021

Flags in the Cemetery

Eighty veterans are buried in the three cemeteries that served The Ridges, formerly known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum. Curator Jessica and I were fortunate enough to quickly find the graves of two men who served in the United States Colored Infantry in the Civil War.

Daniel Mischal was a sergeant in the 27th United States Colored Infantry, Ohio’s second African American regiment. The regiment was organized at Camp Delaware on January 16th, 1864, and served until the end of the Civil War; it was then mustered out September 21, 1865.

Battle of Crater

Here is the grave of Corp. Israel Johnson.

The Colored Infantry not only fought the Confederates; they also had to contend with racism on the Union side. The Ohio Historical Society repeats Sgt. James H. Payne’s account of the August 12, 1864, Battle of the Crater:

“…(T)wo regiments [the 43rd USCI and 27th USCI] drove the enemy from their breastworks, and took possession of the blown up fort; but while they did, all the white soldiers lay in their pits and did nothing to support our men in the struggle; they lay as if there was nothing for them to do for one hour after the explosion took place…How easily Petersburg could have been taken on the 30th of July, had the white soldiers and their commanders done their duty! But prejudiced against colored troops prevented them…I can only conclude that our men fell unnecessarily in the battle on the 30th. In their retreat, they received the cross-fire of the enemy, and no small number were killed by our own artillery.”

Burials were austere

A visitor’s guide to the cemeteries says “Virtually everything about burial on the Ridges was austere. The unembalmed bodies were washed, wrapped in simple shrouds, and placed in plain wooden coffins. Normally, the funeral “procession” was comprised of six people: four gravedigger/pallbearers, a representative of the hospital and a chaplain.

“The service consisted of an opening and closing prayer and, in the case of Christians, a reading from Scripture – no personalized eulogy, no one else in attendance. From the 1870s to 1943, graves were marked only with small, sequentially numbered, marble stones which corroded rapidly and were easily broken – no names, no dates.”

Vets not recognized until 2005

This particular cemetery served the Asylum from its opening in 1874 until about 1913, so the flags you see flying recognize servicemen who fought before World War I.

Two other cemeteries on the property received bodies until 1972, After that, unclaimed bodies were taken to two rural Athens County cemeteries.

In all, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), which has taken on the task of identifying the graves of veterans, has found two who fought in the Mexican War, sixty-eight from the Civil War, a member of the Confederate Army, and another two veterans who served with the United States Colored infantry. Three veterans served in the Spanish–American War, and seven fought in World War I.

Starting in 2005, the Ridges Cemeteries Committee has been organizing Memorial Day Ceremonies for the many veterans buried at the asylum. NAMI started the Memorial Day Ceremonies to help restore dignity to the patients on the Ridges and to help recognize the sacrifice of the veterans, many who had probably suffered through post traumatic stress disorder as well as other post war symptoms.