Cape Girardeau History and Photos

July 15, 2013July 16, 2013

Dempster Hall Fire

I’ve given up chasing sirens, but I couldn’t help but notice a big column of black smoke in town this afternoon. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

A few years back, I pointed to smoke off in the distance to a friend of mine who was married to a newspaper photographer. She said, “There are two kinds of people in the world who see smoke: firefighters and photographers.”

The Cape fire department has been doing some practice burns, so I assumed that’s what it was until I got closer and saw it was coming from near the middle of Southeast Missouri State University. The school has a propensity for tearing down landmark structures to build parking lots, but it usually doesn’t turn on its own.

Localized plume

When I first rolled up, the plume of smoke was fairly localized, but it didn’t take long before it looked like it might be spreading. It had the look of a roofing tar fire to me. They burn hot and black and spread as the tar turns to liquid. I was told the building was undergoing some maintenance work, so that wouldn’t surprise me.

Pulling hose

They had positioned the ladder truck where they could get a look at what they were dealing with, but hadn’t tied into a hydrant yet.

There was a white-shirted officer standing with his back to the pumper when it started backing up. I kept waiting for him to move, but there was so much noise he must not have heard it coming, and he must have been in the truck’s blind spot. At the last second, I hollered “HEY!!!” as loud as I could and the truck stopped. Either he became aware of the man behind him or he heard my shout.

A bystander commented, “I thought he was going to run over that guy.” So did I.

Where are my Missourian buddies?

I kept looking around for Fred or Laura from The Missourian, but didn’t spot them. I made a courtesy call to Fred, but got his voice mail. “Maybe I’ll have a chance to make the paper”, I thought.

I’d love to frame a $5 check from The Missourian for old times’ sake. It would drive the accounting department crazy when it didn’t clear.

I was living at home when I worked for the paper, so I had minimal expenses. Every few weeks, John Mehrle from accounting would come up and ask me to cash my paychecks so they could balance the books. That was the LAST time I ever had that luxury.

The high point of the day was when a cop came and pushed the onlookers back, but walked right past me. I guess carrying real cameras still makes you look like you belong.

No sale

Once they got the master stream playing on the fire from the ladder, the black smoke quickly turned white, then disappeared. It was all over except for mop-up and investigation.

I headed home to edit my film. Drat, The Missourian’s website already had a decent photo up that was tagged “Submitted by Alicia Lincoln.”

“Submitted by” is code for “We got it for free.”

I stopped by to see Editor Bob Miller, who liked a couple of the shots. “Are you giving them to us?” he asked.

“I’d like to get the same token $5 per shot I got in 1963,” I said.

“We can give you credit”

“We can give you credit,” he countered.

“That’s my problem: I have lots of credit. I just don’t have any money to pay the credit card bills when they come due.”

When I shot my first real newspaper photos in 1963, I got a front page byline and a check for $10 in the mail the next day. I wonder if I would have been ruined for honest work had that unexpected check not come? Bylines are cool, but bylines and money will hook you faster than crack.

July 15, 2013

Tower of Memories a Bird House

When Friend Anne was in town, Buddy Bill invited us to lunch. His ulterior purpose was to determine if Anne was real or a figment of my imagination. Anne accepted the invitation because she wanted to find out the same thing about Bill.

After a nice lunch with Bill, his Wife Sharon and some other friends, Bill invited himself along for a tour of Cape. Along the way, Anne got thirsty and we ended up at Sonic, where they each ordered limeades. These were NOT the limeades we used to get at Pfister’s. Let’s just leave it at that.

Anne hears something inside the tower

I’ve always like the Tower of Memories at Memorial Garden, so we made a swing by there. (I covered the history of the tower and gardens in 2010.)

While we were walking around the landmark structure, Anne said, “There are noises coming from inside – and the door is screwed shut from the outside.” Anne isn’t the kind of person who spooks easily: she’s a Texan, after all, a fact she references frequently.

Bill and I crept closer and discovered that Anne was right. We COULD hear strange scratching and beating noises and something else coming from inside the sealed building.

I just have to outrun Bill

I took a close look at my two friends and calculated that I didn’t have to be faster than Anne; I just had to be faster than Bill if something came busting out like in a bad horror flick.

Anne, using her well-honed Texas tracking skills, figured out what was happening. She spotted some broken windows on the side of the tower that allowed birds to fly in and out. Based on the amount of bird – let’s say guano – on the window sill, it looks like they’ve been doing it for quite some time.

I waited to capture a photo of one of the winged invaders, but Bill’s choice of shirts kept the poor creatures cowering inside.

July 14, 2013July 14, 2013

The End of the Line

When I wrote about the Allenville railroad bridge and the petition the Jackson, Gordonville and Delta Railroad Company (JGDR) filed to abandon 13.3 miles of rail line between Delta and Gordonville, I didn’t realize how quickly they’d start ripping up track. As I read it, the petition gave until June 1, 2013, for anyone to object. The ink must have been hardly dry before rails were being pulled up.

Here was the Renfroe Street and E. Second crossing in Allenville July 7, 2012.

Rails were spread in 2012

It was obvious little or no maintenance had been done on the tracks in this area. The rails had spread north of the crossing.

Tracks torn up in 2013

Here’s a view north of the crossing July 12, 2013. The ties have been removed and the rails pulled up.

Split rail, gravel and brush in 2012

A train would have had to negotiate a split rail, hop a gravel-clogged intersection and plow through brush south of the intersection when this photo was taken in 2012.

Brush gone, but so is track

Last week’s photo shows the brush has been cleared from the right of way, but the tracks are gone, too.

Tracks overgrown NE of town

The tracks northeast of Allenville were overgrown in 2012. You wouldn’t know a railroad ran there except for the raised roadbed and an occasional glimpse of steel.

Bolted, not welded

This railroad was built long before trains ran on continuous ribbons of welded tracks. Each individual piece of steel had to be bolted together. The short pieces in this scrap heap are the ones that connected the rails with huge nuts, bolts and lockwashers.

Cutting the bolts

I didn’t look closely enough at the bolts to see if they were ground off or if, more likely, a cutting torch was used on them.

Is there a railroad lost here?

Nature had pretty much reclaimed this section northeast of Allenville in 2012.

The same spot in 2013

The right of way would allow the passage of a train today, but there wouldn’t be any rails for it to run on. I would love to see this land preserved for a future rails to trail, but that’s probably too much to hope for.

The demolition hasn’t gotten too much outside Allenville to the north. I don’t know where they started or if they’ve ripped up the bridge over the Diversion Channel yet.

Older stories

I’ll run other photos taken last summer of where the railroad ran between Gordonville and Allenville just so future historians can see what the line looked like. Here are some earlier stories I’ve done about the JGDR, also known as the St. Louis and Delta Railroad Company. Based on the looks of the rolling stock in Jackson next to Mario’s Pasta House, I wouldn’t count on the railroad being around very long.

July 13, 2013July 13, 2013

Murtaugh Park Expansion

As many of you have figured out, I’m in Cape for a few weeks. When I’m here, I drive around like crazy trying to bag as much new material as possible to dole out when I return home to Florida.

From time to time, I have even managed to scoop The Missourian. (Of course, as I point out to bike riders who brag about overtaking another rider, “It’s only a race if the other guy knows it.)

I thought I might have a chance of catching Photo Buddy Fred Lynch asleep this afternoon when I drove past what I’ve dubbed the Historical Triangle.

Have catskinners become deere slayers?

There was a artist on a bulldozer who we’d have called a “catskinner” in the days when yellow Caterpillar equipment was ubiquitous on job sites. I’ve seen enough dirt pushed around to judge he knew what he was doing.

Since he’s on a Deere dozer, I guess that would make him a “deere slayer,” but that doesn’t have the same ring. The sign in the foreground proclaims the narrow strip of grass to be Murtaugh Park. The Red House is in the background.

Drat! James Baughn beat me

Right there in front of me was a flurry of dump trucks, jackhammers, front end loaders and guys leaning on shovels. All I had to do now was to figure out what was going on.

Drat! Missourian webmaster James Baughn, who with Fred and Sharon Sanders, are must-read Missourian bloggers, beat me to the story. He deserves the traffic, so get the full story from Baughn. (If you REALLY want to be distracted, go to his Bridgehunter website. There’s nowhere else like it to find interesting factoids about bridges.)

The short version is that making Main Street open to two-way traffic made Aquamsi Street redundant between William and Merriwether Streets. The workers were ripping up Aquamsi so grass could replace asphalt, resulting in Murtaugh Park nearly doubling in size. (Of course, that will last until the City Fathers and Mothers decide to make Main one-way again in a few years.)

I stumbled across another story that is right up Baughn’s alley. I hope he reads it here before I see it appear in his blog.