Cape Girardeau History and Photos

December 11, 2013June 23, 2016

Licking the Gateway Arch

I tell newcomers to St. Louis that it is a tradition that first-timer visitors have to lick the arch. I elaborate that in the summertime, entrepreneurs sell alcohol wipes to the germphobes and in the wintertime they sell cups of hot chocolate to chug so your tongue doesn’t stick to the frigid stainless steel.

I tried that at Christmas in in 2000 when Son Matt’s newly-minted wife Sarah joined us at Brother Mark’s for a Christmas celebration. She had been around the Steinhoffs long enough to be inoculated against that kind of foolishness. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Friend Jan almost bit

I came very close to convincing Friend Jan to do The Lick, but she remembered who she was with at the last minute and backed out.

Young and gullible Curator Jessica

It was time to get Curator Jessica up to St. Louis to catch a plane back home to Ohio. Over the kitchen table at Brother Mark’s, I asked if he had any alcohol wipes she could use at The Arch in the morning. Without missing a beat, he said he could provide some, which would save her bunch of money over the ones the vendors sold to tourists.

The hook was set.

On the way to Cahokia Mounds the next morning, I said, “Drat! I forgot to get the wipes from Mark before we left.”

“No problem,” she responded, “I was going to ask you to stop at a Walgreens on the way. I can get some then.”

As soon as she left the car, I called Wife Lila in Florida. “Guess what Jessica’s going to do?” I asked.

“You didn’t?”

“Yep,” I did.

I get The Look

When we arrived at the arch, a group of high school kids were standing on their hands with their feet on the stainless steel. “You might want to lick a different section,” I suggested.

In return, I got The Look, something common to all the women in my life.

Getting down to business

It’s time to pull out the wipes. “All they had was a big package,” she said.

Swabbing down the Arch

Miz Jessica makes sure that no germs are left.

Holy Cow! She did it

Contact is made. Mission accomplished.

That Tram sure is small

When Jan was here, we ran short on time and she wasn’t crazy about climbing into the tram that carries you and four of your soon-to-be closest friends to the top. You can see why here.

We watched a movie on the building of The Arch, something that Jessica’s engineering prof husband would have appreciated. I tried to get her to buy him a copy of the movie in the gift shop, but she saw how much it cost and said, “I love him, but not THAT much.”

When it came time to board the tram, she was less claustrophobic than I was. Of course, she’s about half the size of me and the other guy who was in there with two other women. You develop friendships in a hurry when you’re crammed into a tin can like that.

“You know, you and I are sitting closer than I got with my first four girlfriends,” I told the woman across from me. Funny how it didn’t take her long to exit when the door opened.

On the way down, we met a guy who painted such a succulent picture of the food at Pappy’s Smokehouse that we made a beeline there as soon as we could get back to the car. Like I said, quick friendships.

We made it to the top

After what didn’t feel like a long time at the rate of about 3.86 mph, we made it the 630 feet (7,560 inches, the website translates) to the top of the structure. It seemed like lots of folks were sharing our space, but it’s designed to hold up to 160 visitors. The Gateway Arch website has lots of interesting factoids.

Leaning out feels strange

Miz Jessica wasn’t bothered by the tight quarters in the tram, but she has a touch of fear of heights, so she wasn’t sure how she’d feel in The Arch. I warned her that leaning out to look at the window can feel like you’re going to cause the thing to sway.

A tour guide assured us there was nothing to worry about: it was designed to sway as much as 18 inches, nine inches to either side. I tried to convince Jessica to get the visitors to run from side to side to see if it would start it swaying, but she nixed the idea.

That was probably just as well she didn’t waste her effort. The guide said that it only sways about 1.5 inches in a 50 mph wind and will, in theory, survive a major tornado and earthquake.

A friendly group

Everybody on the top was friendly, with lots of people volunteering to take pictures of groups. Maybe the knowledge that you might be trapped in a tram with your neighbor if it jams, something that happened quite a few times in the early days of operation, puts you on your friendliest behavior.

View to the west

We were lucky to be there on a fairly clear day when visibility could have been as much as 30 miles. The green-domed building is the Old Courthouse, which is part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

A lot of new buildings since 1967

Compare this photo I took in 1967 with the one today. There has been a lot of new construction over the years.

Ballpark to the southwest

The round, reddish structure to the southwest is Busch Stadium.

Yellow building is the Casino Queen

The yellow building on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River is the Casino Queen. If you strain your eyes to the horizon, you might be able to see Monk’s Mound at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. (Or it might just be the massive landfill to the west of it.)

Gateway Geyser

The round body of water is the Gateway Geyser, which shoots water as tall as the arch three times a day during the spring months. It is all part of the Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park, which includes a 40-foot Mississippi River overlook. Malcolm Martin was the man who was instrumental in protecting the area from commercial development and as a green complement to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial grounds across the river.

Project started in the 1940s

What I didn’t realize until this trip was how long the project had been in the works before the gleaming stainless steel structure was yanked out of the ground. It got its start in the 1930s, partially as an urban renewal project to get rid of scores of old buildings that cut off the view of the waterfront.

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial was envisioned to occupy the 62-plus acres where the original French colonial town of St. Louis was founded. Architect Eero Saarinen won a 1947-1948 competition to design the site. His vision of an arch became the focal point of the memorial instead of just a point of interest. Construction of the arch started in February 1963; the north leg opened in July 1967, and the south in May 1968. That must mean that I really was one of the first visitors.

It was all about the river

St. Louis became the gateway to the west because of its location near the intersection of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and being just upstream of the Ohio River in Cairo. Like Cape Girardeau, it’s still a river town at heart.

Basilica of Saint Louis

The Old Cathedral, the building with the colorful trees around it, was closed when we visited, so we couldn’t go in it.

[Editor’s note: I think this may be the last of the Curator Jessica stories from this trip. If you are wondering who she is, Jessica Cyders is curator of the Athens County (OH) Historical Society Museum. We became acquainted about a year ago when one of her interns stumbled across my collection of protest photos. I made a swing through Athens with Friend Jan at the end of January and we hit it off. Since then, I’ve done several exhibits and presentations at the museum and at Ohio University. She’s working on persuading me to donate my Ohio photos to the historical society when I go toes-up.

[She stared following this blog and listening to my many tales of growing up in Swampeast Missouri and decided to take a road trip with me to see if anything I told her was true. As you can tell from this account, every word that comes out of mouth or pen is absolutely gospel. (OK, maybe it’s gospel according to Ken.)]

December 11, 2013

Woodland Inn Hotel & Restaurant

My hunger alarm started going off while we were roaming around Bollinger County shooting Veterans Day photos and the artesian well. Mother said she remembered eating at the Woodland Inn Hotel and Restaurant on the main drag of what used to be called Lutesville, but became Marble hill in 1985.

Flowers (plastic) in the window, salt and pepper shakers at the ready and a rack of sweetener were positive signs. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

The Woodland is closed and for sale

Unfortunately, the next thing I saw was a For Sale sign in the front door. It was closed, and not just for the day.

I ran across a real estate ad that had some information about the property. It was built in 1942 (and appears from the outside to be in good shape).

It is an 11,000-square foot building. 5000 of it is a steak house with buffet serving breakfast that seats 140. Upstairs is about 6000 sq that has 18 rooms to rent as a motel. It has been just remodelled. Building and business all for one price. Great for family investment or family operations. Equipment for a full service restaurant breakfast, lunch, and dinner including a buffet. Motel was recently built and has brand new furnishings.

Marble is the County Seat in Bollinger County. The business is the only Hotel/Steak House in town and is located in the center of the downtown area.

[If you end up buying the place because you saw it here, tell the real estate agent I want a cut of the commission.]

Good catfish and pie

We ended up at a restaurant on the Marble Hill side of Crooked Creek next to the city park. I can’t think of the name of it, but it had excellent catfish and pie worth saving space for.

December 10, 2013

Marble Hill Artesian Well

A trip to or from Cape Lewallen wouldn’t have been complete without a stop outside Marble Hill to fill up canteens and water jugs from an artesian well on the south side of Missouri Hwy 34. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Been on my bucket list

Getting down to see if the spring was still flowing has been on my bucket (bad pun) list for a couple of years, so Mother and I took off to Bollinger County to see if we could find it. We headed west on Missouri Hwy 34 and thought it was near Woodland School, but we couldn’t spot it. There was a lot of road work going on, so we were afraid they might have “improved” it like, I think, Cape County is going to do to the spring off Bloomfield Road.

After driving four or five miles, we headed back toward town. There, just before the school, just like we remembered from the old days, was a nice paved parking spot right at the artesian well.

Listen to the sound of the water

I produced a short video showing where the spring is located and what it’s like. To be honest, I think the audio of the rushing water is better than the pictures. It’s worth 1:07 of your life.

Road to be dedicated December 17

The pull-off gives you plenty of room to get off the road and would easily hold half a dozen cars parked side-by-side

The Missourian had a story that there will be a ribbon cutting December 17, 2013, to mark the completion of a project to add shoulders and curve corrections along that stretch of road.

What’s the history of the spring?

I didn’t think it would be hard to find out when the well was drilled, how deep it is, how long it’s been flowing, etc., but I struck out. I figured if anybody would know, it would be Missourian blogger James Baughn who wrote about it in 2008. James is a pretty thorough guy, so surely it’ll be in his story.

He must have run into the same problem: about the only fact he had other than a Wikipedia definition of an artesian aquifer was that it was a test drill for oil and mineral exploration.

Cold and sweet

When I went back down to Marble Hill to shoot the flags for Veterans Day, I made sure to bring along half a dozen gallon jugs to fill with the pure spring water for Mother to use in her coffee maker.

While researching this, I ran across a 1907 United States Geological publication called Underground Waters of Missouri – Their Geology and Utilization. It listed just about every source of water in Missouri and some of the surrounding states. This well, unfortunately, wasn’t one of them.

The section dealing with mineral waters, including Excelsior Springs, was particularly interesting. “When the the intelligent practitioner reads that a certain water is positively curative in an imposing list of diseases set forth in divers pages of testimonials from renovated statesmen, restored clergymen, and rejuvenated old ladies, and then learns from the analysis that it contains 2 or 3 grains of lime salts to the gallon, with the remaining ingredients required perhaps a third or fourth decimal point to express, he can hardly be blamed for tossing the circular into his wastebasket, with an objurgation upon quacks generally, and mineral springs quacks in particular,” Dr. Cook wrote.

OK, maybe mineral waters DO help

Then, he conceded there COULD be some benefits: “There is no doubt that much benefit is derived from most of the health resorts connected with mineral springs or wells; and while a great deal of it is undoubtedly psychic, some is unquestionable due to the use of the waters. People who are broken down from overwork or who are troubled with many incipient diseases find at these resorts rest, which they perhaps can not get elsewhere; a change of air; a new environment; distractions from trouble; and they use, both internally and externally, perhaps a much larger amount of water than has been their custom at home; these, together with faith in the curative qualities in the water (since every wise physician recognizes faith as a helpful element in cure), form a stimulus to nature in the restoration of normal action to the functions of the body.”

Just for the record, the spring waters not captured in canteens and gallon jugs, run into Crooked Creek.

December 8, 2013December 9, 2013

Cahokia Mounds Historic Site

A couple of Curator Jessica’s coworkers who are in to Native American archeology insisted that she visit Cahokia Mounds when she went up to fly home out of St. Louis. The Mounds are across the river in East St. Louis. I think the last time I was there was in the 8th grade at Trinity Lutheran School when we went on a field trip to St. Louis.

The bus driver made a wrong turn and we ended up in East St. Louis, driving through neighborhoods that looked like a bombed-out East Berlin after World War II. We wide-eyed kids peered out the windows in fascination, but the driver and our chaperones were more than a little uncomfortable. They were trying to figure out a way to explain the loss of a whole 8th grade class. My impression was they were prepared to go down with the ship rather than have to do that.

Museum was closed

When we pulled into the site, we found the museum area was closed. Because it was a cold, windy day, we opted for a quick walk-around and then planned to head over to the Gateway Arch. The fall colors had pretty much peaked, but there were still splashes of brilliance here and there. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Monk’s Mound

Off in the distance and across the road was the largest of the earth structures in the park: Monk’s Mound, named for a group of Trappist Monks who lived on one of the nearby mounds and who gardened the first terrace of this one and nearby areas.

Largest earthen mound in North America

The historical site’s webpage says this is the largest man-made earthen mound in North America. You get a hint of how tall it is when you see this steep staircase.

Now, back a couple of years ago when I was doing a lot of bike riding, I was in pretty good shape. I used to like to surprise techs who would come to service the cellular antennas on our building by running up the stairs.

Rashly, I said to Jessica, “Want to race to the top?”

Curator Jessica, who checks the obits every morning to see if I have kicked off so she can claim my Ohio collection of photos for her museum, gave me The Look and a nod. After about the first 20 stairs, I remembered that my travel partner is half my age (OK, MORE than half my age, but who counts half a decade or so) and is a runner. She showed the old man some mercy by matching my speed.

I kept my eye on the steps

By halfway up, I was gazing down at the steps so I couldn’t see how many more were left to climb. When we got to the top, I was congratulating myself for having gauged my energy levels just about right. I wasn’t even breathing too hard.

That’s when I looked up and saw that the mound had TWO levels and we had just reached the top of the first one. My legs turned to rubber.

On the way up what I hoped was the final set of stairs, I spotted lots of interesting viewpoints that called out for me to stop to record them. It was interesting how I kept finding more and more of those the higher we go.

That couple you see going up and down the mound? They said they climb it two or three times to stay in shape.

I refrained from remarking that one trip up says you can pass the aerobics test. The third trip up would mean you failed the IQ test.

A puzzle for space aliens

Once you regain consciousness at the top of Monk’s Mound, you can look west for a spectacular view of St. Louis and the Gateway Arch at the left of the frame.

If I’m reading the map correctly, the flat mound in the middle foreground is Mound 42, also knows as Merrell Mound. It is well preserved and supposed to be very near in its original form except that the top was leveled to support a house that stood there for nearly 100 years.

In the far distance is a huge mound that is larger even than the one that nearly killed me. Future archeologists (or space aliens) will have a field day trying to reconstruct the religion of the area’s inhabitants based on the relics they find there. What is it? It’s a modern-day landfill.

[Editor’s note: I think there’s only one more Curator Jessica story left from this trip: her visit to the Gateway arch, including a photo of her licking the arch, which I convinced her was a requirement of all first-time visitors. (THAT’LL get even with her for the Mounds expedition.)]