Cape Girardeau History and Photos

I can’t even begin to count how many car crashes I’ve been to. I’ve seen every variation: car vs car, car vs train, car vs tree, head-ons where both cars inexplicably veered across the centerline to meet in the middle of the road….

In every case, though, there’s that moment when the sounds of busting glass and ripping metal stop and there’s an awful silence, punctuated only by the sounds of dripping fluids and the eerie popping sound that a hot engine makes cooling down.

People at their best

Long before anyone official shows up, ordinary citizens step up to help the injured. I’ve always tried to avoid photographing victims when they are at their most vulnerable. I’d rather shoot the folks who rush in and do their best to give aid and comfort to the scared, confused and injured.

All my negative sleeve says about the crash above is Highway 61 – man pinned in car – 5/1/67. I didn’t see the photo in The Missourian the next day, so it might not have run. I DID enter it in the Ohio College Newspaper Association photo contest in the fall and it won something.

I’ve always been touched by the tender way that the rain-drenched man, with a raindrop getting ready to run off his left eyebrow, cradles the head of the victim, while another man tries to force the car door open.

Even Joe James gets tired

Joe James started James Wrecker in 1930 with a 1927 truck he converted into a wrecker. If you were anywhere near Cape when you bent metal badly enough that you couldn’t drive, it was probably a James wrecker that hauled you off. I’m going to put together a collection of James’ photos one of these days, but this has always been one of my favorite photos of the man that I think was Joe James.

I don’t know if I just caught him when he was a little tired or if he was in a reflective mood.

The crashes were coming closer

I arrived a few minutes early for an assignment for The Gastonia Gazette, so I decided to kill some time waiting in my car. In the distance, I could hear a train whistle. I watched a car dart across the train crossing a couple hundred feet away and thought, “I should set up and photograph cars trying to beat the train.” Just as I thought that, a car crossed directly into the path of the train and was pushed up the tracks, throwing sparks and pieces for about a block and a half.

I ran to the car and held a 16-year-old boy while his life flickered away. A Gastonia policeman came up, gave us one look, reached for his radio and said, “You can slow ’em down. It’s just a 10-7 (radio code for out of service) N-word.”

This one almost got me

A few days later, I went out to a crash on I-85. It wasn’t much of a wreck and I don’t know if I even shot a frame, but it stopped traffic just over a rise. I turned to walk back to my car when I had a bad feeling. Just then, I heard an 18-wheeler lock down his brakes and plow into the string of stopped cars.

Within seconds, a trooper and some truck drivers turned to prying the victims out of the wrecks. I heard later that the trooper in the center of the photo got chewed out for allowing himself to be photographed without his hat. I never did find out if that was true or just a case of a another trooper pulling my leg.

It was several weeks before I got over the crazy feeling that my premonitions were coming true and that the crashes were getting closer to me every time.

It’s hard to say why Old McKendree Chapel has always been a special place for me. Mother was a Methodist when she was growing up in Advance, but she moved over to the Lutheran side of the fence when she married my dad, so that’s not it.

I never attended any of the chapel’s camp meetings or services, but I still find myself drawn there almost every trip.

Schwinn expanded my world

When I got my Schwinn bicycle when I was 12, my world expanded to include rides to McKendree Chapel over roads that were mostly gravel. I can remember maxing out the speedometer on the steep downhill run leaving the chapel. I think my mother must have had to give special attention to my underwear after that trip.

When I was in high school, I rented a bicycle built for two and took a date on a ride to the chapel. It was our last date. The rule of thumb is that two things will challenge a relationship: riding a tandem bicycle and hanging wallpaper. If I’d have given her the wallpaper test, I could have saved some serious pedaling.

Chapel built in 1819

The chapel site was used by church circuit riding ministers as a meeting place to exchange information and plan for the westward expansion of Methodism as early as 1806. It was built in 1819;  the local circuit resolved in 1869  to repair the building, not to replace it with a new chapel.

In 1933, the McKendree Chapel Memorial Association was founded to preserve the building. It was one of the first preservation groups in the state.

Which is the REAL chapel?

I don’t want anyone to think I actually know all this stuff. Like Wife Lila says, you don’t have to know everything, you just have to know where to find it. I get a lot of my info from Missouri Department of Natural Resources list of National Register Listings.

If you scroll down to the McKendree Chapel listing, you’ll find all kinds of interesting stuff. It’s a large file, so you may have to right-click on the file name and then select Save As and open it later with Adobe Acrobat.

One controversy is whether or not the chapel, with its exposed square log walls is the “real” version of the chapel, or if the building’s authenticity was damaged when weatherboard siding that covered the logs was removed in 1977. When I look at photos that are part of the National Register application, THAT is the church that I remember from my childhood.

I KNEW that there was something different about the building, but I didn’t know exactly what it was.

Good arguments can be made for both the weatherboard facade and for the bare logs we see today as being the “real” chapel.

I was trapped

One of the things I’ve always liked about the chapel is that it’s unlocked. There’s a locked grate over the fireplace inside to keep someone from building a fire, but a simple latch secures the double front door.

On my last visit, I decided to go inside to reminisce and to shoot some fresh interior photos. After I finished, I tried to open the door. It wouldn’t open. It’s supposed to open inward, but there was no door pull to give me any purchase on the door.

The Methodists did WHAT to you?

I tried sticking my knife blade into the crack between the doors, but no luck. I debated trying to take the door off its hinges, but didn’t want to take any chance of causing damage. After struggling for several more minutes, I was ready to admit defeat. Darned Methodists. This is an insidious recruiting technique. Once they get you into the church, you’re captured for good.

My mother was waiting outside in the car. I dialed her number hoping (a) that she had her phone with her and (b) that she had it turned it on. Fortunately, (a) and (b) were true, and after a sort of confusing conversation, “The Methodists have done WHAT with you?” she went after the caretaker who was mowing the church lawn. He opened the door from the outside and agreed that an inside door pull might be a good idea. He denied any kind of religious plot.

Oldest cemetery stone is 1821

On the south side of the road leading to McKendree Chapel is a small, peaceful cemetery with stones in very good condition for their age.

The oldest legible tombstone is for William Hooser, who died at 11 years, nine days, in 1821. The National Register application says local tradition says that he became ill and died during the 1821 camp meeting of the Methodist congregation and became the first internment.

Elizabeth Campbell died in 1865 at 95

I didn’t see William Hooser’s stone, but I did see the marker for Elizabeth Campbell, who died Feb. 26, 1865, at the age of 95. Just think, I was standing next to the remains of a woman whose life spanned the American Revolution AND the Civil War.

Brother Mark said I should stick my head in at Suedekum Hardware on Good Hope to see if they still used old ammunition boxes for storage drawers. “Look, too,” he continued, “for the marks nailed into the floor for measuring rope and chain.”

Nails mark 40 feet

Mark was right. The drawers are still there and the nails still make a convenient way to measure materials.

Why is it called the MEYER BLDG?

I was confused. I grew up going to Suedekum’s with my Dad. He had an office on the second floor of the Farmers and Merchants Bank, so the hardware store was a convenient stop. I had never noticed the terra cotta panel above the door that said MEYER BLDG before.

Chuck Meyer explained it

George Meyer and Herman Schwab established the business, called Meyer and Schwab Hardware Company, in 1900 at 626 Good Hope St. In 1912, W. F. Suedekum purchased Schwab’s share and the operation became known as Meyer and Suedekum Hardware.

In 1916, W.H. Meyer had a two-story brick building erected at 620 Good Hope Street to house the business. Suedekum bought out Meyer in 1926 and the name was shortened to Suedekum Hardware.

The ownership returned to the Meyer family in 1982 when Robert E. Meyer purchased the business and assumed operation of the store. The name was officially changed to Meyer Supply in 1990.

Haarig has changed

The hardware store looks out onto a changed and depressing landscape. A vacant lot diagonally across the street is where the Orpheum Theater stood until the early 1990s. Chuck Meyer said they heard the roof collapse one afternoon. The theater, built in 1917, introduced talking movies to Cape Girardeau in 1929.

The area became known as the Haarig District because of the large influx of German immigrants who came to Cape Girardeau in the late 1840s and 1850s, with another peak coming after the Civil War. A high percentage of them came from Hanover and Brunswick, which created a close-knit community.

Meyer’s offers service, nostalgia

Tom Neumeyer wrote a story headlined Suedekum’s offers variety, service, nostalgia in 1990, when the store was rebranded with the Meyer name.

It still offers the kind of unique service that only an old-time hardware store can provide. Two of the five customers who came into the store while I was there started off by saying, “Lowes sent me here because they couldn’t help me.”

If you have an older house or have an oddball need or just want to talk with someone who has seen and done it for years, this is the place to come to.

Metal ceilings look the same

Many of the features I remember as a little boy are unchanged. The steel columns and metal ceilings are still there. (I read somewhere that the ceilings had been painted in 1957. I don’t know if they’ve had a touch-up since then,)

Rolling ladders still work

I always thought it was cool how the store had ladders that would roll around on rails so merchandise on the high shelves could be reached. The ladders are still there and they still work.

They had an elevator?

I didn’t know until this trip that there was a huge freight elevator in the building. It still works. It looks a lot like the one in the old Walther’s Furniture Store on Broadway (more about that coming).

Gallery of photos from Meyer / Suedekum’s

As always, click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.