Cape Girardeau History and Photos

February 11, 2010February 11, 2022

Valentine’s Day Cards from Trinity Lutheran School

Valentine’s Day card from Cheri Huckstep

Preparing for my Presidential Libary

There was a time when I thought I had a career in politics. Because I was positive my Presidential Library would find the trappings of my early life important, I made sure to save everything.

My political aspirations hit an iceberg when I picked Bill Hopkins to pilot my Student Body Presidential campaign. Let’s just say that the 163 folks who voted for me were nowhere near a majority and certainly didn’t warrant calling in lawyers to oversee a recount. Jimmy Feldmeier was the clear winner.

Reading the will of the people very clearly, I abandoned my plan to run for POTUS in 1984, the first year I would be Constitutionally eligible and decided that I was more suited for journalism and sniping from the sidelines.

My Mother’s attic is a time capsule

I may have never made it into a Presidential Library, but I have the next best thing. On my last trip home, I ventured up into the time capsule of my Mother’s attic.

If you dig deep enough, you can probably find every school paper I ever brought home; all of my workbooks going back to kindergarten; hundreds of stickers that say, “Don’t be a sucker, Vote for Kenny (I’d have gotten more votes if Jim Stone hadn’t eaten most of the suckers instead of handing them out to potential voters); report cards; a Bucker-Ragsdale receipt for my Cub Scout uniform and this huge stack of Valentine’s Day cards from Trinity Lutheran School days.

There’s also a box of vintage early 1950s comic books that my destructive younger brothers shredded after I went off to college. I’d be able to afford a better brand of cat food in my retirement years if they were in the same condition as when I left. They saved the fragments just to drive me crazy.

1961 Eighth Grade Class at Trinity Lutheran School

We were together for nine years at Trinity Lutheran School

Most of us were in the same class from kindergarten through the eighth grade. Even though the yearbook didn’t have names with the pictures, I can probably still place names with all but about three or four pictures (they may not be the RIGHT names, but…). No, I’m not going to tell you which one was me.

Valentine’s Day ranked way up there in the Grand Scheme of Holidays. It wasn’t quite Christmas, the Fourth of July or Halloween, but it came pretty close to your Birthday.

The only hassle was having to fill out a card for every member of your class. Then, there was the agony of picking out which card went to which kid. You didn’t want to send one that was too mushy to a girl in the sixth grade.

Now that I look back at these cards from sixth and seventh grade level, I wonder about some of the cards I got from the boys in my class.

Was there a message I missed?

Judy Schrader’s card saying that she wished I’d fall for her line caused my heart to pitter patter. I mean, we actually skated together at the Hanover Skating Rink on Friday nights. That was a big deal. (At least to me, it was.)

Getting that same card from Don Sander seems a little strange these days. I mean, I shared a tent with him on Scout camping trips. I never realized he felt that way.

These were simpler times

The card below didn’t come for Valentine’s Day. My dad built roads all over Southeast Missouri and we lived in a house trailer he’d pull from small town to small town. When I was about three years old, we must have gotten to know a family in Mountain View well enough that I was invited to a birthday party.

Look at how the envelope was addressed:

Kenny Steinhoff

City

It didn’t have a street address, a city, state or Zip Code. It wasn’t even addressed to my parents. It’s addressed to a three-year-old living in a house trailer. And it cost just a penny to be delivered.

You can’t beat that with a stick.

Gallery of cards

These represent a couple of years, because several classmates appear more than once. I guessed at last names, but I think I’m close to right. Click on any card to make it larger, click on the left or right side to move through the images.

Valentine Season Aside

Forty-five years ago this month, I was lucky enough to meet Lila Perry, who was working as a cashier at the Rialto Theater. We were married in 1969 and she’s tolerated me every since. I wrote up the whole story last year.

February 8, 2010March 20, 2021

Wimpy’s in 1966, 1967 and 2009

Wimpy’s Intersection in 1966

My friend, Fred Lynch, Southeast Missourian photographer, had a picture of the original Wimpy’s building taken in the 1940s in his blog.

I spent some time at the second iteration of Wimpy’s, when it moved across the street to the corner of Cape Rock Drive and Kingshighway. I went into the store a lot of times as a kid, but it wasn’t a normal teenage hangout of mine. I think I was more of a Pfister’s kind of guy.

I took the time exposure above sometime during the summer of 1966. I don’t know if I shot it for a story or if it was just a finger exercise to practice shooting night photos. The headlights and taillights of cars left the light streaks.

Busy intersection for wrecks

I have pictures where Wimpy’s was the backdrop for one of the many crashes that occurred at the busy intersection before traffic signals were installed. My Dad’s construction company had the project to widen that section of Kingshighway. The state created room for the turn lanes by turning the shoulder into travel lanes, something he thought was a mistake. He thought they should have widened the road, but you build to the specs, not to what you think is right.

This picture from 1967 appears to be some kind of minor motorcycle accident.

Wimpy’s was gone in 2009

I took this time exposure Oct. 13, 2009. Wimpy’s has been replaced by a bank, which is closed and for sale. Traffic lights make the intersection safer, but there are a lot fewer cars to control at night after the demise of Wimpy’s.

February 5, 2010February 5, 2010

Cars We Have Known and Loved

Steve Crowe’s Corvette

Bill and Sue Roussel do a great job of producing an email newsletter aimed at the Decade of the 50s. (Send an email to nunyab@sbcglobal.net to sign up for it.) Sue sent me a message that Bill’s brother, Jim Roussel, sent a bunch of pictures that were too big to go out in the newsletter and she asked if they would work for this site. I’m happy to have someone send me material, so I said I’d run them.

That reminded me that I had a picture of Steve Crowe ’65 and his new Stingray.

Gallery of Photos from Jim Roussel

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to step through the gallery.

Students from the 50s and their cars

Jim sent this list of students from the 50s and the cars they drove

BENNY HINTON: 50 DODGE, GREEN

BILL ROUSSEL: 50 OLDS, GREEN

TOMMY MEISNER: 56 DODGE D500, GRAY

KAREN WILSON: 56 DODGE

JIM PUTMAN: 56 PONTIAC, GREEN AND WHITE

SHIRLEY DAVIS: 55 PONTIAC CONV, RED AND WHITE

MIKE STEVENSON: 58 CHEVY CONV, BLACK AND WHITE

ROBBIE ROBISON: 59 RENAULT (SHARP CAR), BLACK

FRANCINE FORD: 55 CHEVY, PINK AND WHITE

CATFISH MOORE: 56 OLDS, RED AND WHITE

BILL CLARK: 56 OLDS, RED AND WHITE

SKEETER JONES: 56 DESOTA, BLACK AND WHITE

DICK NEEDLING: 50 BUICK (SIKESTON BOUND), GRAY AND BLACK

R. J. BOLLINGER: 50 MERCURY CONV, BLACK AND WHITE

NIP KELLEY: 57 BUICK CONV, RED AND WHITE

JOHNNY JONES: TWO 57 CHEVYS

TERRY HEUER: 57 PLYMOUTH FURY

BOB REDWINE: JAGUAR CONV (BOB WAS 14 OR 15 WHEN HE DROVE TO CENTRAL)

EDDIE CRITES: 1954 Mercury Green & White (Gas pedal would stick)

February 3, 2010April 2, 2021

Scott City I-55 Interchange Under Construction in 1960s

A trip to St. Louis or Memphis took all day

If you’re a Post-Boomer, you probably don’t know going to St. Louis or Memphis was an all-day affair before Interstate 55 was built. It was such a big deal that The Missourian routinely ran briefs that said, “Mr. and Mrs. John Jones, 1618 Somewhere St., journeyed to St. Louis for shopping and to see relatives.”

It wasn’t until the late 60s that the paper established the policy that a mere trip to those two cities didn’t warrant coverage unless actual news was committed.

I had forgotten how recently I-55 was constructed, until I saw the aerial photo above tacked on the end of the roll that had the Bald Knob Cross shots on it. That would have put it roughly in 1964. (Also on the roll are some shots of downtown Cape before the KFVS building was built. They’re coming in the next few days.)

It took me a little head-scratching to figure out where the photo was taken. My first guess was Route K near the mall, but there are no railroad tracks out there. Then, I remembered some overpasses over tracks in the Chaffee area, but there’s no Interstate there.

It was the Scott City Interchange

Finally, I pulled up Google Earth and started searching for railroad tracks near an interchange with a highway overpass nearby. I also figured that it was probably near the Cape Airport where Ernie Chiles and I would have taken off. Bingo. That was it. The giveaway turned out to be what I assume to be a train station just east of the ramp area.

Highway 61 is the overpass on the left

The overpass to the left of the interchange carried traffic north over the Diversion Channel to Cape and south to Benton. The road that parallels the railroad track is Main Street leading into Scott City.

The equipment used to build the Interstate was a little more modern than the steam roller my Dad used to pave Rt. 25 going into Advance in 1941.

Here’s a map showing the Scott City Interchange as it looks today

View Scott City Interchange in a larger map