Cape Girardeau History and Photos

July 25, 2010April 16, 2021

Annie Laurie’s Laurie Ann

Laurie Everett, owner of Annie Laurie’s Antiques is an extraordinary young woman. I’d say that even if she wasn’t my wife’s niece. We’ve known her since she was a hatchling called Laurie Ann, because the Perry Family decided that one name wasn’t enough. (I’m not going to tell you Lila’s middle name.) I wrote about Annie Laurie’s and some other antique shops on my bike blog in 2008.

Laurie’s third from the left

It was family tradition for Lila to shoot what she called The Picture of Florida sons Matt and Adam with of all the Cape nieces and nephews when we came to town. Laurie’s third from the left and Matt and Adam are to the right of her.

Laurie’s dad, John Perry, taught her to be able to handle herself. There’s a photo around somewhere of her and John with their heads buried under the hood of a jeep fixing it. He taught her how to shoot, which led her to qualify as an Expert when she joined the army.

Family has always been important to Laurie. It wasn’t always about hunting, twisting a wrench and getting her hands greasy. She and her dad shared this tender moment one day. (I’ve been told that no feet were harmed in the making of this photograph.)

Military was “a family thing”

She graduated from Cape Central High School in 1996, after attending Alma Schrader Elementary School. She graduated from SEMO, then decided she wanted to join the Army for the educational benefits, the experience and because “it was a family thing.” Her dad had served in Vietnam.

Laurie was a Military Police officer in the Army. She was stationed in Kitzingen, Germany, but she either visited or was deployed in France, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Romania, Israel, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece and Switzerland, among others. Her location in Germany put her within about six hours of most of Europe’s major historical landmarks.

While stationed in Germany, she received her Master’s Degree in Human Relations from, get this, the University of Oklahoma, which had an outreach program there.

“I’m going to date that girl”

One of her jobs was processing new troops, explaining the local customs and making them aware of what they needed to know. One soldier, Rocky Everett, commented to his buddy, “I’m going to date that girl one day.”

Rocky and Laurie were married in Cape on a cold October night in 2003. They have one son, Fletcher, AKA Flea.

“I was ready to settle down”

After she got out of the Army, she said, “I was ready to settle down, and this was a good community. I always liked antiques, so I started to work at Annie Laurie’s.”

When the owner, Mary Robertson, decided to sell the business, Rocky and Laurie jumped at the chance to buy the place. “One stipulation I made to Rocky was that if we were going to do this, we were going to live upstairs.” And, they do.

Antique shop had been funeral home

Long-time Cape residents will remember the antique shop as having been the former Brinkopf-Howell Funeral Home. “Do people ever ask you if the place is haunted?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I just tell them that everybody who came here was dead already, so they don’t need to haunt the place.”

Ranked #1 Antique Store in Cape County 3 years running

Annie Laurie’s has been ranked the Number One antique shop in Cape Girardeau County three out of the last three years.

Laurie’s motto, “Expect the Unexpected,” is one of the reasons the shop has been so successful. She’s constantly changing displays (including the mannequin above, which shows up all over the place dressed in outlandish outfits) to make the place interesting.

Annie Laurie’s for period clothing and costumes

Laurie, who is an adjunct professor at SEMO, teaching marketing, works hard to attract college students with her selection of period costumes and funky clothing. Gail, above, made a convincing witch at Halloween.

Need a wig?

Laurie models the wig she wore for Halloween.

Using the Internet for marketing

Unlike many businesses in Cape, Laurie understands that the Internet can bring in new customers. “You’d be surprised how many of our customers find us through Google,” she explained.

Photographer Michelle Huesen is photographing SEMO coed Rachel Hendrickson in an outfit from Annie Laurie’s for use in promotional material. Laurie’s also active in Old Town Cape and the Cape Convention and Visitors Bureau and other organizations.

You can visit Laurie’s web site, Cape Antique Shop, or the shop’s Facebook page.

People feel at home at Annie Laurie’s

“We create an atmosphere where people feel at home. We have coffee and cookies around. We remember our customers’ names and what they like,” she said. She’s started taking digital photos of customers and posting them on her Facebook page.

American Gothic style

Here was her Facebook comment under this photo: “Lovin’ old men in overalls. This cutie blushed a bit when I asked him if I could take his picture. I just wanted to squeeze his cheeks.“

Recognized by Southern Living Magazine

Annie Laurie’s Antiques was featured as “a definite stop” in Southern Living Magazine’s Southern Antique Shops.

Laurie was written up in The Southeast Missourian’s 40 Under 40 column April 3, 2009.

Brian Blackwell interviewed her Sept. 28, 2009. He quoted her as saying, “You name it and I have done it. Snow cones, tanning salons, hostess, juvenile detention worker, internship at local police department, soldier, nonprofit organizer, veterinary assistant, office manager, university instructor [and] business owner, just to name a few.”

Annie Laurie’s Antiques Photo Gallery

Here are a selection of photos of Laurie and some of the things in her shop. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo to move through the gallery.

July 23, 2010November 3, 2011

Cape Mississippi River Bridge RIP (Rest in Pieces)

The old Cape Mississippi River Traffic Bridge was an adolescent adrenaline rush, a white-knuckled journey of fear and angst; it was an inconvenience, it was the site of personal and family tragedy. It also opened up Cape Girardeau to Illinois and points east when it became the first bridge across the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Memphis.

It was a part of our lives, indicated by the number and variety of the comments left on yesterday’s post about a crash on the bridge. The span, which was 4,744 feet, 4 inches long, opened to traffic August 22, 1928. A contractor used explosives to drop the bridge into the Mississippi August 3, 2004.

The approach to nowhere

The steelwork has all been removed, but they were still working on removing the bridge piers when I shot this photo from the Illinois side of the river in October of 2004.

Piers the last to go

The massive piers that held the bridge up were the last parts to be demolished. This photo shows the flood gates that are closed, blocking north and south rail traffic when the river gets high. I prowled around under the bridge here and picked up a few souvenir pieces of steel. The Missourian said 160,000 rivets were used in building the bridge.

Missouri approach turned into scenic viewing area

The decorative archway over the Cape approach to the bridge has been preserved and a portion of the span has been turned into an attractive viewing area. I wish that the whole bridge could have been preserved for bicycles and pedestrians like the Chain of Rocks Bridge north of St. Louis, but the Coast Guard considered having two bridges that close together to be a navigation hazard.

Mississippi River Traffic Bridge Photo Gallery

Here is a collection of photos taken of the bridge’s last days in the fall of 2004. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

July 23, 2010January 12, 2016

Crash on the Bridge

Crossing the bridge was a rite of passage

Crossing the Mississippi River Traffic Bridge was a rite of passage when you first got your driver’s license. No bridge in the world ever felt higher, longer or narrower. It didn’t just LOOK narrow, it WAS narrow. It was common to see splintered reflective glass on the deck from when 18-wheelers slapped mirrors.

All I know about this wreck was that the negative sleeve was slugged Don Call Wreck 1966. I’m assuming that one of the folks in the pictures is Don Call, but I don’t know that for sure. Since I didn’t know the month, I didn’t bother to try to find it in The Missourian.

Safety belts weren’t common

You can tell that this was taken in the era before seat belt usage became common. The windshield has the characteristic dimple caused by someone’s head bouncing off it.

Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge no challenge

On my last trip to Cape before the bridge was torn down, I planned to ride my bicycle across it. I figured if I did it on a Sunday morning, traffic would be light enough that it wouldn’t be a factor. When I drove across it, though, I didn’t like the looks of the expansion joints. Some of them had a wide gap that would swallow up a bike tire and some of the others were sticking up like jagged teeth.

I wasn’t sure which would be a worse fate: to be doing 20 or 25 miles an hour on the downhill stretch and have your front tire eaten by a gap, which would launch you over the bars and into the river or to blow a tire and have to carry your bike all the way across the bridge with traffic backing up behind you.

I wonder what kids will do for a challenge these days? The SHOULDER on the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge is almost as wide as the traffic lane on the old bridge.

I opted not to do the ride.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

So many readers left comments about the bridge that I did a follow-up story on the last days of the bridge in October 2004.

July 21, 2010July 22, 2010

Mystery Housing Development

This isn’t the story I had planned to file today. I was working on an interview with someone I photographed back in March when the Weather Channel intervened.

When I was looking at our pool deck last weekend, I notice that some of the bolts holding our screen enclosure to the concrete pad had started failing. A bunch of them broke off during the 2004 hurricanes, and I replaced them before the 2005 season hit. Unfortunately, they, too had rusted and popped off since then.

When I went to bed last night, there was a 70% chance that we might see Bonnie headed our way. I needed to replace the failing hardware.

The Rule of Threes

I decided to replace them with stainless steel Tapcons and washers this time. Ouch. That stuff’s not cheap. Of course, then I had to go out and buy a new hammer drill to install them. The first one I picked up was missing a part. That meant a trip to the store to replace it. Mid-way through the project, I snapped off a drill bit. That meant another trip to the hardware store.

I developed a Rule of Threes for home repair projects: Every project takes three times as long as anticipated; costs three times as much as budgeted and requires at least three trips to three different hardware stores for every item needed.

This is a long, weather-related version of “the dog ate my homework” to explain why you’re seeing these mystery photos instead of the interview.

Aerial photo of subdivision

Just so you won’t disappointed that there’s nothing new up, I decided to post these aerial photos of a unidentified housing development. Here’s a slightly different angle of the area. There’s a small creek running down the left lower portion of the photo, but I don’t recognize any of the roads. There are no big buildings or water towers to help, either. The only info I have is that the pictures were taken April 14, 1964.

Bonus round

If figuring out where those photos were taken was too easy, here’s a bonus question. For some reason or another, I tagged this aerial as being ‘aerial of stream’, maybe near Dutchtown. (That was when I scanned the photo, not when it was taken.)

There’s a bridge in the middle of the photo crossing the stream, but I can’t tell if it’s a car or a railroad bridge. It’s possible it’s the old bridge over the Diversion Channel near Blomeyer.

What’s happening with the storm?

The good news is that by spending the day in the hot sun drilling holes and filling them with bolts, I chased the storm away. Had I not done that prep work it would have strengthened overnight and parked itself over my house as a Cat 3. (Let’s hope I don’t jinx myself by saying that.)