Cape Girardeau History and Photos

September 13, 2012September 13, 2012

Fruitland Quarry in News Again

Fruitland’s Strack Quarry is back in the news again. I’m not even going to try to figure out what the latest wrangle is all about. I’ll let you go to Keith Lewis‘ story in The Missourian to try to figure out how a quarry that had approval to operate and which has moved a bunch of overburden and started poking a big hole in the ground can be told to put the brakes on.

When I was home last summer, I climbed a berm in on the south side of the Saxony Lutheran High School and shot a 360-degree panorama with the school behind me and a graveled area that is on the quarry property in front of me. I’ve marked the photo with compass directions to make it a little clearer. Click on the photo to make it larger.

Aerial looking north

I took this aerial photo April 17, 2011. The quarry property would be at the bottom of the picture.The yellow X marks the approximate place I was standing when I took the panorama. Highway 61 is at the top left. The Y-shaped building near the center of the photo is the high school.

Google Map shows scope of work

View Larger Map
This Google Map will give you an idea of how much land has been cleared for the project. If I’m reading the latest ruling correctly, the pit itself is outside the 1,000-foot latest requirement, but the latest interpretation would require the whole operation to be 1,000 feet away, even though the north end of the property alongside CR 601 is behind a berm that is as high as the rooftop of the school.

Area quarry stories

September 11, 2012

Brother David’s Birthday

I promised to have more and better photos this year than I did last year on Brother David’s birthday, but I had forgotten how quickly the pages on the calendar turn. This is the best I could do. Maybe next year.

The first shot shows David and Diane with their rental trailer. I’m guessing this is when they moved to Tulsa.

This is why they have girls

This double exposure showing David and Diane with their trailer also exposes Son Matt. I’m not sure, but I think this experience may be why the couple had girl children and their daughter, Kim, has girls.

Lined up at the trailer

Here we all are lined up in front of the travel trailer my folks bought to keep over at Wil-Vera Village on Kentucky Lake. The quarters were a bit tight. Wife Lila (who took the picture) was happy when Dad traded it off for a full-blown mobile home not long after this photo was taken. David and Mark are both sporting full heads of hair. I’m in that awkward transitional comb-over stage before becoming good-looking like Dad.

Love the details

Let’s see, David’s shoe is untied. Mark is tired out from carrying his hammer around looking for something to hit. The tricycle has a load of animal crackers on the rear deck. Note the red reflector tape on the trike. Dad bought it by the mile in widths from one inch to four inches and in white and red. I still have some kicking around. As always, you can click on the photos to make them larger.

So, Happy Birthday, Brother. I hope it’s a good one.

Our Pearl Harbor

It was our generation’s Pearl Harbor. I wasn’t going to write about it because everybody else in the world is going to do “where I was stories.” To get THAT out of the way, I was in Cape. Mother said something about a building on fire in New York. I looked at the TV and thought, just like I had when I first saw the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City in flames on April 19, 1995, that it was a gas explosion. Soon, in both cases, we discovered a darker reason for the flames: terrorism.

The scramble to get home

I called Wife Lila in West Palm Beach and we shared our fears.

I hurried to a Cape gas station to fill up for a quick trip back to Florida. I wasn’t sure if gas was going to be available – or how much it was going to cost – for the return.

On the way south, I drove under an overpass near Nashville that had a massive American Flag hanging from it. I’ve never seen so many flags flying. I also noticed that drivers were more polite – they’d give you a wave to let you know it was OK to pull out and you’d acknowledge it in kind.

Where was the shared sacrifice?

Of course, that only lasted for a short while. Instead of experiencing the shared sacrifices of World War II, we were told to go shopping. Instead of cutting back on energy consumption, we demonstrated our patriotism by hanging “Support our Troops” magnetic ribbons on the back of gas-guzzling SUVs. Instead of drafting a cross-section of American society, putting everybody at risk, we had a volunteer army that meant it was unlikely that you had any literal skin in the game. Politicians like Rudy Giuliani whose sentences, according to Joe Biden, consist of “a noun, a verb, and 9/11” wrapped themselves in the flag and rushed us into two wars for dubious reasons.

Osama Bin Laden, for the price of 19 airline tickets, managed to cripple our economy and made us give up freedoms and privacy. Mission accomplished.

Flags still thrill me

Still, as I travel across this great land, I’m still thrilled to see our Flag flying. These were taken at the North County Park, Overbey Farms outside Murray, Ky., the Jackson City Hall and a florist in Gastonia, NC. These are AMERICAN flags. They don’t belong to politicians and political parties and they should be used to unite, not divide us.

September 10, 2012

A.C. Vasterling Building

I went to get something out of my van parked at Broadway and Fountain when I noticed a cornerstone for the first time: A.C. Vasterling 1903, it read.

It was on a light-colored three-story building next to where the Idan-Ha Hotel used to stand. A quick search didn’t turn up about Mr. Vasterling, except that it sounded like he had been a mayor at one time. There was a Google-scanned document called Barrel and box and packages, Volume 19, by Edgar Harvey Defebaugh that had this brief item that made it sound like Vasterling was a mover and shaker:

Himmelberger – Vasterling wedding

Charles A. Himmelberger, of Cape Girardeau, Mo., and Miss Louise Marguerite Vasterling were married June 16 [possibly 1914]. Mr. Himmelberger is the son of J.H. Himmelberger, the well-known lumberman of southeast Missouri and president of the Hardwood Manufacturers of the United States. The bride is a daughter of A.C. Vasterling, one of the best-known insurance men of Missouri.

Dinner party for newlyweds

A Missourian story on January 2, 1920, carried this brief: Mrs. Charles Himmelberger entertained at a dinner party last night at her home at 325 North Sprigg street in honor of Mr. and Mrs. A. C. Vasterling, who were married on Christmas day. Mrs. Laura Pape, Miss Lizzie Vasterling and Mrs. J.F. Williams were the other guests present.

Firsts of 1920

In the same paper was this lists of “firsts” of 1920:

First Baby – Marguerite Oliver Dearmont, 9:30 a.m. Jan. 1.
First Death – Mrs. Mary Herbst at her home, as clocks announced arrival of new year.
First Accident – Albert Mason, fireman, badly burned at 4 p.m., Jan. 1.
First Court Case – Suit of a hound dog, won by Cicero Estes.
First Snow – 2 a.m., Jan. 2