Cape Girardeau History and Photos

September 23, 2012April 15, 2021

Smokey Robinson at Ohio University

I covered a lot of concerts and music groups without really knowing (or caring) who they were. I didn’t even bother to label the negative envelope in many cases, so I don’t know if the group went on to become famous or they were were just a garage band that somebody wanted to review.

These photos WERE labeled and dated, but I can’t, for the life of me, remember the concert. It said “Smokey Robinson 2/17/68.” I did some research and found that Smokey Robinson & The Miracles DID perform at Ohio University on that date. I must have covered this for The Ohio University Post.

Is he still alive?

Compounding my embarrassment, I asked Wife Lila, “Is he still alive?” she said that he was not only alive, but she had gone with a friend to see him perform in West Palm Beach not long ago. “He still puts on a fantastic show.”

When I went to the official Smokey Robinson website, I saw that a “legendary Rolling Stones photographer” was selling prints of Smokey on stage in 1968. Too bad I’m not legendary. These pix might be worth something.

Photo gallery of Smokey Robinson concert

Since I don’t have anything to add, I’ll just post the photos and let them speak for themselves. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or ride side of the image to move through the gallery.

September 20, 2012

Exhibit Sneak Peek

Here are layouts of some of the photos you’ll see at my exhibit in Altenburg. I ran a press release for the event yesterday.

Exhibit when and where info

Watch this space for a date and time when I’m going to be doing a dry run of the presentation I’ll be giving at a conference on October 25. Think of it as a war story blooper roll. I have way too much material and need to figure out what works and what doesn’t before I turn it loose on a real audience.

Photo Gallery of layouts

Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo to move through the gallery.

September 19, 2012September 16, 2015

My Exhibit in Altenburg

The kind folks at the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum were kind enough to send out a bunch of press releases today.

For Immediate Press Release:

The Perry County Lutheran Historical Society’s, Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum is pleased to open a new exhibit: “Ordinary People Doing Ordinary Things: Ken Steinhoff Photojournalist, 1964-Present,” featuring nearly 50 years of photography from: Cape Girardeau County, Perry County, New Madrid, MO; Tower Rock, portraiture, and other rural documentary photography.

Steinhoff’s take on his work is, “I’ve covered popes, presidents, and the Queen of England, but I really like to shoot ordinary people doing ordinary things: the invisible folks whose names only appear in the paper when they are born, when they die, when they get married and when they get a speeding ticket.”

Open Daily Now- through November 2–10:00am-4:00pm-. Free Admission

Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum, 75 Church St., Altenburg, MO 63732

573-824-6070

Sneak Preview

You can see more layouts here.

I’m going to be doing a photo and video presentation at a conference at the museum on October 25, but I’m setting up a “dress rehearsal” a week or so in advance of that. I have way too much material and want to know which babies to throw out of the lifeboat. I’ll post more info when I get to Cape around Oct. 10 or so. I’d love to see some of you up there so you can hear my war stories in person.

September 18, 2012February 11, 2021

Wreck at Broadway – Perry

The thing that caught my eye about these photos wasn’t the wreck – it looks pretty minor. It was the neighborhood in the vicinity of Broadway and Perry Ave. and how it has changed since these photos were taken in the mid-1960s. Almost everything on the south side of Broadway has been gobbled up by Southeast Hospital. Click on the photos to make them larger.

Stubb’s Beer Garden gone

The 1968 City Directory lists the following businesses in this block of Broadway

1700 – Lacy’s Texaco Service
1703 – Bill Wescoat’s Trailer Rental Service & Wescoat Motor Company
1704 – Cape Drive-in Cleaners
1720 – Stubb’s Beer Palace
1736 – Child’s IGA Foodliner

The city directory might list it as Stubb’s Beer Palace, but we always referred to it as the Beer Garden. It’s a parking lot now. Child’s Foodliner is occupied by an orthodontics practice.

2011 Aerial of SE Hospital -1700 Block

Here is a 2011 aerial of the area. Perry Avenue comes in the from the left. Capaha Park is at top left, and Southeast Hospital takes up most of the right side of the photo. You can go here to see aerial photos of the area in 1964.

Wreck doesn’t look serious

Looks like car vs. pole and sign. I learned a long time ago not to play crash investigator and speculate about the cause of a wreck.

I may have told this story before. I had to testify in a civil suit involving a car crash. I showed up with more prints than Arlo Guthrie in Alice’s Restaurant. I was barely old enough to have a driver’s license of my own, so one of the attorneys tried to get me to speculate about the cause of the accident and to lead me into making a statement he could pounce on. I kept saying, “The photo shows x, y and z. That’s all I can tell you.”

“You testified that the skid marks were 37 feel long. Could they have been 34 or 38 feet long and not 37 feet long? What makes you so sure they were 37 feet long.”

“I took a tape measure and measured them because I figured some lawyer would ask me that.”

“No further questions.”

Houses are all gone

It’s hard to believe that the Broadway facing Capaha Park was once filled with family homes. John Hilpert, one of my best buddies in grade school lived in an old two-story house on the other side of Louisiana Avenue.