Cape Girardeau History and Photos

September 5, 2015

739 Themis Street

Looks like some substantial improvements are being made to an apartment building at 739 Themis street. I used to visit Nowell’s Camera Store’s star salesman, Marty, at that address. It was there I was introduced to music by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.

Here are some Missourian briefs about some of the other residents.

August 24, 1937 – Miss Ona Wright, 739 Themis street, and Miss Mary Childress, 314 North Fountain street, went to St. Louis Sunday to spend a few days and attend the Municipal Opera.

March 24, 1945 – Seaman First Class Vern E. Owens, 22, a son of Mrs. Esther Owens, 739 Themis street, was among the survivors of the escort carrier Bismarck Sea, which, it was announced today, was sunk by enemy action Feb. 21 off Iwo Jima. His mother, of the news staff of The Missourian, received a letter dated March 17, from him Friday and had previously received a letter dated March 6. Both letters said he was well, but, presumably for security reasons, he made no mention of the sinking of the carrier.

June 26, 1947 – G.A. Kassel, 120 North Ellis, today observed his 80th birthday anniversary, and a family supper at the home of a daughter, Mrs. Leo Wagner, 739 Themis street, this evening will formally celebrate the anniversary. Mr. Kassel, still enjoying good health, remains active in his photographic studio at the Ellis street address. [Note: the Wagner’s appear in Missourian briefs frequently from the mid-1930s on.]

The Women’s Center and Safe House occupied the building starting in 1978.

September 4, 2015

Bad News, Good News

The bad news is that a week or so ago, I cruised down Sprigg to Good Hope and notice that the top left side of the old Cape Cut Rate building had collapsed onto the street and sidewalk. The east wall looked like it was bulging out where its neighbor was gone like a piece of coconut cream pie with a slice missing.

I told my passenger I had better get back there before there was nothing but a pile of rubble left. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

The good news

The good news is that when I went down there Thursday afternoon, the damage had been repaired. Maybe someone has plans to save the old landmark building.

The sign that used to hang over the sidewalk is gone. The only trace I could find of it was a piece of cable that used to hold it up.

Here’s a post that has lots of links to earlier stories about the Haarig District.

September 3, 2015September 3, 2015

Random Football Pictures

I guess this just goes to show that it’s not a good idea to store prints in an attic where the summer temperatures approach Fahrenheit 451 (the ignition point of paper) and the winter falls to just north of Absolute Zero at which point all molecular activity stops (or something like that).

Marks on the back make it look like some of the prints were for The Sagamore. Others might have been for The Missourian. Still others might have been “seconds” or “rejects,” pictures I didn’t know were too bad to use until I actually saw the print.

Ektamatic Process

Another reason the photos have deteriorated so much is that I experimented with using an Kodak Ektamatic processor to keep from having to slosh photo paper in developer, stop bath, fixer, and then wash and dry it. In theory, you would feed your print into a machine containing a series of rollers that would run it through an activator solution, then a stabilizing chemical. As they exited the final roller set, the print was “almost” dry.

In fact, the processor never produced the quality of a chemical print, and the paper never fully dried. Even Kodak admitted the process would produce prints “where quality images are necessary, but long-term keeping is not.” I have a couple of boxes of Ektamatic prints and contact sheets that have turned into a paper brick.

After finding that I couldn’t use the processor as intended, I used the rollers to squeeze out most of the water from the prints so they’d dry faster on a conventional dryer.

Photo gallery

I have no idea if these are all SEMO games or if some high school action is mixed in. Click on any image to make it larger, then use the arrow keys to move through the gallery.

September 1, 2015

Our Google

I ran across a box of poorly fixed and fading pictures that I must have taken for The Sagamore.

Here a student is using the wireless research application we had available to us at Kent Library. It had a lot of advantages: it didn’t require batteries, power, expensive hubs and routers, rewiring the building, and it never froze up and needed to be rebooted.

In the interest of full disclosure, on a cold day, the USER might be frozen (see below), and, if they made excessive noise, Dr. Snider might boot them from the learning facility.

Exercise a side benefit

You had to trudge to the library through slush and snow in the winter or broiling heat in the summer, uphill both ways.
Once you had determined that there was a reference material you needed, you had to prowl the stacks hoping that nobody had checked the book out before you got to it.
If you were lucky enough to find it, then you’d have to carry a mountain of books back home (up the hill) to do your work.
When done, you’d have to haul the materials back.