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Jackson’s Pioneer Orchard

Remember going out west of Jackson to the Pioneer Orchard for peaches, apples and apple cider? About all I could find of the orchard today is a street sign at the intersection of Pioneer Orchard Road and Oak Street.

Oh, yeah, I didn’t spot any towering oaks on Oak Street, either.

Big Yellow Taxi

Let’s all sing a verse of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi:

They took all the trees

Put ’em in a tree museum

And they charged the people

A dollar and a half just to see ’em

Don’t it always seem to go

That you don’t know what you’ve got

Till it’s gone

They paved paradise

And put up a parking lot

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1989 Idan-Ha Hotel Fire

I happened to be in Cape on vacation July 7, 1989, when I heard about a fire at Broadway and Fountain. I was about 1,100 miles out of my jurisdiction, but nobody hassled me when I started taking pictures of firefighters fighting a fire at what was left of the old Idan-Ha Hotel.

Investigators determined that a tenant on the second floor left her room without realizing that she had left a pot cooking on an electric stove. She heard her smoke alarm going off, ran back into the apartment and found it engulfed in flames. She left the door open, which allowed it to spread to the rest of the building.

The Missourian gave the story extensive play in the July 9, 1989, edition. Missourian photographer Mark Sterkel showed up while I was there, so I was robbed of a chance to get another photo in the paper.

Some residents jumped from windows

About half of the 40 to 45 residents were home when the fire broke out. Several of them jumped out windows and off fire escapes to escape the blaze. The building’s concrete floors and brick walls slowed the spread of the fire upward, but it also trapped the heat, which made the fire difficult to fight.

First priority was rescue

The first call came in at 5:31 p.m.; it went to a second alarm four minutes later. When firefighters arrived, they saw a woman sitting with both legs out a second floor window, “not far from jumping or being overcome by smoke” Assistant Fire Chief Jim Niswonger said. Once she and other residents were evacuated, attention turned to fighting the fire.

A heavy stream of water from the aerial platform ladder truck’s deluge knocked the main blaze down pretty quickly. Two firefighters had minor injuries.

Part of hotel burned in 1968

This 1964 aerial shows the Idan-Ha Hotel before a 1968 fire destroyed the northeast portion of the building. The Common Pleas Courthouse is at the bottom; The Southeast Missourian is in the middle; the Idan-Ha is at the top left, across the street from the H & H Building and the Marquette Hotel. The KFVS TV building hadn’t been constructed yet. I think the tall, light-colored building at the corner of Broadway and Fountain was the Post Office at that time.

Here is a link to The Missourian’s story about the June 29, 1968, fire which destroyed the main section of the hotel, Milady’s Shop, the Rainbow Coffee Shop. Six other nearby businesses were also damaged.

Fire resources stretched thin

While crews from three of the Cape’s four stations were fighting the fire, three other minor fires were reported in the city. Fortunately, they were small enough to be handled without calling in mutual aid from Scott City or Jackson.

Photos of Broadway and Fountain

You can see additional photos of the intersection of Broadway and Fountain, including the Idan-Ha Hotel as it looked in 1966 and the present day.

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Shell Station, Man with Car

Here’s a roll of film that has been abused, but I’m intrigued enough by the fellow in the picture that I decided to toss it out here to see if anyone knows him, the car or which Shell station it was taken at. I don’t recall what else was on the film, but these looked like random photos taken for no particular reason. There’s no date on the film, either.

Mystery Shell station

Here’s a better shot of the car and the neighborhood. The car’s body isn’t really that ragged. The negative has all kinds of junk on it and I didn’t want to spend the time trying to touch it up.

I was probably the only male of my generation never acquired the ability (or the desire) to tell one car from another. Well, that’s not exactly true. I know this ISN’T a 1959 Buick LaSabre station wagon, because I had one of those. And it’s not a VW. After that, I’m hopelessly lost. I see an ornament that says it’s a V8, for what that’s worth.

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Christmas at The Steinhoffs

Christmas was always a big deal at our house, as the 1966 photo above shows. The Christmas tree was always set up in the basement recreation room, as they were called in those days.

When we boys got up, Dad and Mother (mostly Dad) would torture us by making us wait until everybody got ready to go downstairs. Grandmother, who moved slowly because of arthritis, was always the first to go down.

When I got into high school, and became the official photographic historian, I was given the go-ahead to go next.

Christmas 1969

I had been doing some photo books for class projects at Ohio University, so Lila and I decided to put together one of our first Christmas as married folks in 1969. Here’s what it looked like.

Each person generally got one big “special” present. They weren’t always under the tree. In fact, as we got older, Christmas morning turned out to be more like a scavenger hunt as we tracked down clues all over the house. Dad and Mother (mostly Dad) took great pleasure in watching us scurry.

Mother got a skillet

Mother would almost always get at least one utilitarian present. It might be a skillet like this, or a vacuum cleaner or a clothes dryer.

Then she’d get a “fun” gift

It might be a series of cards with clues as to what she should buy with the money enclosed or it might be an actual gift.

Boys got lots of small gifts

Dad loved to buy things. I think he started shopping for next Christmas on Dec. 26. We never did figure out were he squirreled away all the loot. In fact, sometimes, he’d forget what all he HAD bought. At the end of opening orgy, he’d look around, then disappear for a few minutes, returning with yet another box or two that he recognized were missing.

Grandmother liked “smell-good” stuff

She’d get cosmetics, books, scarfs and knick-knacks.

Dad lived for Christmas

He loved to watch us tearing into the packages.

We were too busy to see this

We kids were too busy ripping paper to watch the interplay between our parents. I don’t think I paid much attention to them until I shot this book.

Dad got harder to buy for

My junior or senior year in high school, Dad decided to quit smoking on New Year’s Eve without telling any of us. We didn’t know why he had gotten cranky for several weeks. He finally said that he threw all his cigarettes in the fireplace at the end of the year, but didn’t want to say anything until he was sure he had kicked the habit.

That complicated our gift-giving, though. That ruled out pipes, tobacco, pipe stands, lighters and other smoking accessories.

Taking inventory

Once we had everything unwrapped, it was time to concentrate on that “special” gift. David must have gotten a turntable this year. I remember some of my big presents being a Hallicrafters S-38E shortwave radio (Son Matt has it now), a Daisy pump action BB gun, an Argus Autronic 35 (my first 35mm camera) and, a few years later, a Pentax camera.

They proclaimed it a success

When it was all over, it’s obvious that they rated our morning a success.

Biggest trash day of the year

I read somewhere that the day after Christmas is the biggest trash day of the year. When I see all of the debris left over in 1966, I can believe it.

I should feel guilty about all of the stuff we got, but Grandson Malcolm is playing with some of the toys and Mother’s attic has a lot left for the next one.

I’m glad Lila and I put this together. It brings back a lot of good memories.

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