Cape Girardeau History and Photos

March 21, 2013October 27, 2021

Ohio University Post

There’s a big Ohio University Post reunion in Athens, Ohio, this weekend.

I was photo editor of the paper from the fall of 1967 through the summer of 1968, when I went to work for The Athens Messenger. I won’t make it back for the reunion, but I put together these layouts of some of the student newspaper staffers from 1968 – 1970 to display at the Athens County Historical Society Museum. For you folks who ARE in Athens, here’s a sample of what you’ll see. Curator Jessica Cyders said the museum, at 65 North Court Street, will be open Saturday morning from 10 a.m. until noon, so you can slip in before the formal reunion activities begin.

The museum will also have photos I took during the Martin Luther King National Day of Mourning on April 8, 1968. Some staffers like Tom Price, Clarence Page, Lew Stamp and others appear in the pictures.

And, finally, you can see protest photos I shot from 1967 through the close of the school on May 15, 1970. Rudy Maxa and others show up in them.

Photo Gallery of OU Post Staffers

The museum will have prints of these for sale. The prints are suitable for framing. I don’t know if that means you can frame the pictures or frame the people IN the pictures. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the picture to move through the gallery.

March 20, 2013

Millikan Motor Company

The two buildings at 221 Independence haven’t changed much over the years. I thought they were where Firestone was located and where Dad worked years and years ago, but Mother said I was wrong about that.

Here’s what the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for the Main-Spanish Commercial Historic District has to say about the property:

221 Independence – These twin Streamline Moderne buildings were built for Jessie Millikan to house the Millikan Motor Co. The eastern building was constructed in 1941 as a showroom and included several garage bays and a paint bay to service the automobiles. The Streamline Moderne style is characterized by the horizontality of the facade which is emphasized by the use of rounded corners, smooth wall surfaces, glass blocks and flat roofs.

West building added in 1950s

To accommodate the growing needs of the company, a twin building with rounded corners, smooth wall surfaces, and glass blocks was constructed to the west in the early 1950s prior to 1955. A driveway runs between the two buildings. In 1996 a residence was added to the rear of the east building and connects to the location of the original paint bay. The addition is not visible from the street.

Little built during ’30s and ’40s

The Haarig Commercial Historical District National Register mentioned the buildings:

Due to the economic constraints of the Great Depression and America’s involvement in World War II, little construction took place in downtown Cape Girardeau during the 1930s and 1940s. The popular Art Deco and Art Moderne styles of this period are limited in the city. A few notable examples include the one-story commercial building at 221 Independence Street. This building was constructed ca. 1935 and reflects the Art Moderne style with a curved corner and structural glass blocks.

March 20, 2013

Learning about Taxes at Woolworth’s

I learned about taxes in the Woolworth Store that stretched from Main Street to Spanish Street at the corner of Independence.

I must have been about six years old, with a dollar bill burning a hole in my pocket. Where I got that much money all at one time is a mystery, but I managed to convince my parents to let me go to Woolworth’s, known also as the Five and Dime, to buy a toy. The toy section, if I remember correctly, was toward the west end of the store, so we likely walked through these very doors to get to the Promised Land. The lunch counter, with its distinctive sound of clinking silver on heavy china was on the north wall just east of the toys.

After looking at everything except the girly stuff, I settled on a stub-winged, olive-drab, friction-drive airplane, which may still be in Mother’s attic if my destructive younger brothers didn’t get hold of it. It cost 99 cents. Army toys – not action figures, which are just dolls for boys – were big with my age group. I’m pretty sure we were still fighting the Germans and not the Japs nor the Reds.

Clutching my plane in one hand and my dollar bill in other, I handed over my treasures to the cashier. She placed the plane in a brown paper bag and gave it back.

I waited patiently. Finally, I asked, “Where is my change?” Math was never my strong suit, but even in the first grade I understood that if you gave someone a piece of paper that represents 100 pennies to buy something that costs 99 pennies, you should get a penny back. (I had not been introduced to the concept of tipping yet.)

“There’s a penny tax,” she explained. “You don’t get any change. You had just enough for your purchase.”

“Tacks? I didn’t buy any tacks”

“Tacks?” I said in a bewildered tone, “I didn’t buy any tacks. I just wanted the airplane.”

Where’s my money go?

That was just about as disappointing as when I found out that the Farmers and Merchants Bank didn’t operate like Scrooge McDuck’s Money Bin. I had been faithfully depositing spare bits of change with them every time I went to visit Dad, who had an office on the second floor of the bank. I assumed that I’d get back the same change I had given them. Nope. When I went to redeem my cash, they handed me paper dollar bills, which were nowhere near as exciting as a pocketful of change that you could jingle.

Life, I found, was full of unpleasant surprises.

March 19, 2013March 19, 2013

A & P Food Store

Did you know what the A & P in the A & P Food Store stood for? I didn’t either, but Terri Foley, who did The Missourian’s Lost and Saved column did all the work for me.

Here’s her information:

In 1941, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. constructed the building at 19 N. Spanish St. in Cape Girardeau to house the A&P Super-Market. Grand opening of the new store was held Oct. 14 of the same year. At that time, the store was the largest A&P store between St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn. With the opening of the new store, the company closed its other operations in town at 28 N. Main St. and 817 Broadway.

C.A. Juden was commissioned to build the new one-story brick building, measuring 70 feet by 150 feet. On the southeast corner was a three-story tower that featured interior lights and a large circular neon sign. Across the upper facade of the building was a 35-foot neon sign. The store featured a large package cheese and dairy department and a 50-foot meat case and counter. The store stocked more than 2,500 varieties of grocery items.

It was the first of the A&P stores in Missouri to have a collected group of fluorescent lights. There were five check-out stands. As cashiers checked out a customer, a receipt was printed with each item purchased and the cost. Customers could pay a penny for shopping bags.

Our family shopped there, but I think we went to Child’s on Broadway more often. I liked that store better because Mother would park me at the comic book rack just as you came in the store. I didn’t care how long she shopped as long as I had comics to read.