News photos that have grown whiskers and have become history
What would have brought my classmates from the Central High School Class of 1965 to Cairo, Ill., on a foggy morning on Oct. 2, 1964?
I’m pretty sure I can spot Ron Marshall, Don Sander, John Magill and Chuck Dockins. I know at least three others were there.
I’ll have the answer Friday, along with more photos, but I’m open to your guesses and more names.
Southeast Missouri State University’s student paper, The Capaha Arrow, turned 100 on Feb.l, a Missourian story by M.D. Kittle pointed out. Despite what my kids might think, I wasn’t around to help put out the inaugural issue.
I know I had a lot of photos in The Arrow, but the 1966 and 1967 Sagamore yearbooks don’t list me as being on the newspaper staff. The photo above shows the front page of the newspaper set in type at The Missourian’s print shop. The picture on the front page is one I took, and this image appeared in The Sagamore.
I had W.W. Norris, the paper’s adviser, for Journalism at SEMO. It was an easy A. I don’t remember Mr. Norris as being a particularly inspiring instructor, but we got along fine. After I’d breezed through the class exercises, he’d come over and we’d trade newspaper stories.
I wish I could dredge up some fond memories of The Arrow, but I can’t think of any memorable photos I shot there.
Part of that was because I spent as little time as possible on campus. That drove poor Missourian Editor John Blue to distraction because I was ostensibly hired as Campus Correspondent. I have a number of memos from him pointing that out and asking when I was going to get around to actually writing about SEMO doings. He’d probably have fired me if I hadn’t worn so many other hats (so cheaply).
I’ve already written about the exile of Chief Sagamore for the more politically correct Rowdy Redhawk. In fact, The Capaha Arrow has dropped the “Capaha” from it’s name. It’s just The Arrow these days.
Bill East wondered what happened to The Sagamore if Chief Sagamore was deemed inappropriate. I went to the official SEMO website, put “Sagamore” in the search box and was directed to “Fun Facts,” where I was told, “The Sagamore Yearbook is no longer in production. Southeast began the Sagamore in 1912 and in 1989 decided to no longer print a University yearbook.”
So, if the university hadn’t pulled the plug on it, The Sagamore would have celebrated its centennial in 2012.
Wife Lila worked on The Sagamore as a subdivision editor. She rejected a print from one of the staff photographers, who sassed, back, “Let’s see if YOU can do any better.”
That was a mistake. She marched right into the darkroom and showed him that she HAD learned something from all those hours looking over my shoulder.
I normally side with the photographer, but I’d have loved to have seen that little exchange.
These guys looked vaguely familiar, but when I saw the coin changer and the Star book peeking out of the shirt pocket, I KNEW where this was taken: The Star Service Station at 600 Broadway.
I bought a lot of gas from them over the years. They were in the perfect location: across the street from Nowell’s Camera Shop, on my way to The Missourian, and close to the Rialto, where Lila worked. Oh, yeah, also nearby to Tony’s Pizza Palace. What more did a young man need in the 60s?
I filled a bunch of those Star Stamp books over the years. Ninety stamps would earn you $1.50 worth of free gas. I’ve never been a smoker, but my eyes open when I see smokes for a quarter a pack.
This was a full-service station, too. None of that pump-it-yourself stuff in those days. I don’t remember if they’d vacuum your car like Brune & Eaker’s Phillips 66 that I wrote about earlier.
When I searched for stories about 600 Broadway, I found that it has been lots of things over the years. Here’s a sample:
Aug. 26, 1948 – Hartung’s Key & Repair Shop has a newly painted red and silver front. Wm. C. Hartung, owner, has been in the present location the past 48 years. His father, G. Hartung, owned the business before him.
Stevies Steakburger was in the building when I was in Cape in October 2009. The white building on the right is Annie Laurie’s Antiques, formerly Brinkopf-Howell Funeral Home.
I was researching the history of SEMO Stone, which was once Federal Materials and was originally the Edward Hely Limestone Quarry. It might even be older than the cement plant quarry, but I’m still checking.
Anyway, I’ve been following the Fruitland quarry controversy with half an eye without developing any strong opinions one way or the other. One of the players also owns Strack Excavating and Hauling, which owns the quarry I featured Jan. 7, 2011,
I recalled reading some back-and-forth in The Missourian about which came first, the quarry or the houses in the Dalhousie golf community. I took the lazy way out and activated the timeline feature in Google Earth. Here’s what I found.
The first photo available shows both the quarry area and the golf development undeveloped and being used for agricultural purposes. The street overlay makes it look like there are streets, but they don’t exist. Hwy 74 and Bloomfield Rd (CR 205) are about the only real roads. (Click on the images to make them larger.)
In this USDA Farm Service photo from Jan. 1, 2003, we can see that both the golf course and the quarry are taking shape. The housing area, though, is still forest.
In this photo from May 11, 2005, the quarry is beginning to show some depth. Clearing has begun in the Dalhousie housing area. Some of the streets are paved, some are still under construction. Google also had a USDA photo from June 15, 2005, but it was similar to this one and of poorer quality, so I omitted it.
By the time 2009 rolled around, the quarry had gotten substantially deeper and the homes on the bluff overlooking it had been built. Most of the roads are paved.
My Nov. 6, 2010, aerial photo shows a slightly different angle from Google’s, but the situation is pretty much the same. The quarry is much deeper. I don’t think any additional homes have been built.
I’m going to have to say that these photos show that the Dalhousie Golf Course and the Strack Quarry were both developed at roughly the same time. There is no doubt, however, that the quarry was well established before the first home in the development was built.