Cape Girardeau History and Photos

April 16, 2016

Ryan’s Steakhouse is Closed

After doing some business at the Verizon store, I drove around checking on some new construction of Vantage Drive. That took me into the parking lot of what used to be Ryan’s (we always called it Ryan’s Steak House, but I don’t know it that was ever its real name).

Closed with no warning

A March 9, 2016, Missourian story said the buffet / steak house closed unexpectedly on Sunday. Employees were notified by a sign on the door telling them to return Tuesday “for further instructions.”

The parent company, Buffets LLC announced it was filing for bankruptcy. They didn’t waste any time shuttering the place. The newspaper story said that an auction company announced that a preview would begin on March 9, and the complete contents of the restaurant, including equipment, furniture, decor and smallwares were on the block. They were one of nearly 100 restaurants that were closed, partially for “poor performance.”

I went to the website mentioned on the sign to find the location of the next nearest Ryan’s. If you have a craving, better fill up the gas tank. There are only three within 75 miles of Cape: Poplar Bluff, Union City, Tenn., and Mount Vernon, Ill. (And, that’s assuming the website is being updated.)

Maybe here’s a reason the closed

Ryan’s was a staple of ours for years. Then, about 10 or so years ago, I started begging off it it when Mother would suggest the place. I like buffets, but the food has to be fresh and have a lot of variety. As best as I can remember, it started slipping.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one to think that. I checked some online reviews. One on Tripadvisor, dated March 1, 2016. said “the food tasted like road kill dipped in fecal matter.”

An April 1, 2015, long review started by saying, “This is by far the worst restaurant I’ve ever been in,” and went on to list all the things he found wrong with it. Others, as recently as a month ago, said it was “disappointing,” and “on a downward spiral.”

Still, you have to feel sorry for the folks who worked there, like the woman who posted on the Ryan’s Family Steak House Facebook page, “Feeling sad. Well, my fellow former coworkers, it’s been real. I’m gonna miss you all! And miss working with everyone! Definitely had some good laughs and times! Wouldn’t change it! Keep in touch!”

April 15, 2016

Martin’s Bakery

Some days you can’t find what you were looking for, and some days you get turned around. I went searching for some addresses listed in The Green Book, only to find all the houses gone. (More about that in a future post).

While I was in the neighborhood, I took a swing by where I thought Martin’s Bakery used to be, since so many people have fond memories of it. I thought it was right behind Suedekum Hardware, near the intersection of South Frederick and Good Hope, right about here.

Maybe I was confused because the good smells drifted down the street to where Dad and I could smell them while coming out of the hardware store.

It was at 227 South Frederick

A check of the 1968 City Directory placed it at 227 South Frederick, almost at the end of the block on the right, according to Google Maps.

Wife Lila, when she proofed this, said, “The bakery was a little to the left of the green pipes in the picture. When we lived with my grandmother, we walked to church on Sunday. On the way home, she would stop for something from the bakery.” Despite where Google Maps puts it, that’s closer to where I remember.

There were surprisingly few references to it in The Missourian.

There was one line in a Sharon Sanders blog about Cape construction in the 1940s that said Gebhard Martin built a one-story bakery at that address in 1948.

Gebhard Martin

The February 26, 1981, Bulletin-Journal carried Mr. Martin’s obituary. He was born Oct. 30, 1907, at Eigeltingen, Germany, son of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Martin. He was 73 when he died. He and the former Virginia Hoffer were married July 10, 1938, here. He came to the United States in 1929.

He worked at Illmo and with the Bauer Bakery prior to operating his own bakery at 227 South Frederick for 23 years. He was a member of St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Survivors include his wife; three sons, Gilbert Martin of Cape, Charles Martin of Columbia, Ill., Jerome Martin of Carlinville, Ill.; a daughter, Mrs. Annie Pluth of St. Louis; a brother and four sisters in Germany, and 10 grandchildren.

Martin’s Bakery in Illmo

Most of the references I found while searching for “Martin’s Bakery” went back to one in Illmo owned by “Gebb” Martin. The May 26, 1930, Missourian front page has a big story about a $50,000 fire that destroyed the Lightner building, which housed a movie theater with an interior designed to look like a river showboat; the Martin Bakery, and a residence.

I’m assuming that’s the same Illmo bakery mentioned in the obit, although if he arrived in this country in 1929, it didn’t take him long to establish a bakery that burned the next year.

Missourian copy editor Bill Meston would have sent that back for the reporter for clarification.

April 13, 2016November 17, 2021

Girl Scout Camp Latonka

I’ve been scanning a lot of Boy Scout stuff recently. Dad, my brothers and I were members of the Anpetu-We lodge of the Order of the Arrow, the Boy Scout National Honor Society. I liked the Order better than the Boy Scouts because we were older boys, selected by our troops, and dedicated to service. We spent weekends building things and doing repairs at Camp Lewallen, for example; things that we could point to years later and say, “I built that.”

While doing a search, I ran across a note on Facebook saying that “as the Brotherhood of Cheerful Service, we have an opportunity to assist the local Girl Scouts at Camp Latonka again this year.” I hadn’t been on a work day since probably 1967, and I had never been to the Girl Scout camp located on Lake Wappapello in Wayne County. This was going to be a chance to kill two birds with one stone.

The worker bees

When I got to the camp, I saw several trucks and cars around the dining hall, but there was no sound of saws, hammers or other activity, so I just roamed around shooting mug shots of the facilities.

I finally ran into the group taking a lunch break before heading down to tear rotted boards off cabins, do some painting and general clean up. I shot this group photo of the Order of the Arrow members and The Friends of Camp Latonka in front of a stack of rotten wood that would be burned in a bonfire later.

A beautiful site

Without going into a lot of detail, some of which can be found here, a merger found the Girl Scouts with two camps in Wayne county. The Missouri Heartland board decided to retain Camp Cherokee Ridge at Patterson, and “divest” lands not needed, like Camp Latonka.

If I was cynical, I would say that the Latonka site, with waterfront access to Lake Wappapello and great overlooks of the lake, would be prime pickings for developers, with the proceeds going to support other Heartland activities. Fortunately, there was enough of an outcry that the camp has been given a new lease on life. It still depends heavily on donations and volunteer labor to keep going.

Camp mugshots

Pictures of people can be divided into portraits, which attempt to capture a person’s personality, and mugshots, which are merely records of facial features. Since I had never been to the camp before, I knew nothing of the “soul” of the place. What you see are merely mugshots that I hope will stir some memories for some of the hundreds of girls who have passed through the camp. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around.

April 12, 2016

A Matter of Time

When Road Warriorette Anne and I drove by this barn on MO C on the way to Altenburg in the summer of 2013, I knew it was just a matter of time before gravity won.

Being taken apart

While I was enjoying my usual Wednesday night feast of liver and onions at Altenburg’s Mississippi Mud Tavern, I asked Museum Cat Herder Gerard when the old barn south of town finally gave up the ghost.

He said someone was dismantling it. I’m glad to hear that it might get a new lease on life from someone who appreciates old barn wood.

The Golden Hour

Photographers and medical folks both talk about “The Golden Hour.” To shooters, it means that magic hour before sunset or after dawn when the light becomes softer and warmer. At least, I know it does at sunset. I rarely have an opportunity to see if it happens in the morning.

During World War I, military surgeons observed that patients who received immediate treatment had a much better survival rate than others. Dr. R. Adams Crowley said, “”There is a golden hour between life and death. If you are critically injured you have less than 60 minutes to survive. You might not die right then; it may be three days or two weeks later — but something has happened in your body that is irreparable.”

Later studies have shown there is no sudden drop off after exactly 60 minutes. It’s not the exact time that’s the key; it’s just the sooner you get help, the better.

After I took the barn photo, I turned to put my cameras back in the car and saw the effect of The Golden Hour on the road curving away in the distance with people going home. The barn picture was actually TOO golden for my taste. I dialed back the color a tad to keep it from being overpowering.

As always, you can click on the photos to make them larger.