Tag: Blacksmiths

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Cement Plant HQ and Other News

Cape cement plant office building built in 1926 11-10-2010A story in the Nov. 29, 1926, Missourian said “High officials of the Marquette Cement Manufacturing Company and affiliated corporations, have arrived in Cape Girardeau for the dedication late today of the new $50,000 office building near the plant in South Cape Girardeau. The new building, one of the most ornate and substantial in Cape Girardeau, has been completed and is ready for occupation.”

Although the late afternoon sun makes the color much warmer than it really is, the building looks like it has been well-maintained. It IS ornate.

Abandoned oxbows of Cape LaCroix Creek

Cape cement plant office building built in 1926 11-10-2010A view from atop the cement plant shows the headquarters building sitting near oxbows of Cape LaCroix Creek from the days when it used to join the Mississippi River close to the Diversion Channel instead of its present course north of the plant and south of what used to be Smelterville.

Other stories that day

Cape cement plant office building built in 1926 11-10-2010I can’t just read what I was looking for. I always get sucked into reading the stories around my target. Here’s what else was being written about on Nov. 29, 1926.

  • Bandit with mask and gun holds up the Kelso filling station on South Sprigg and makes off with $71 after forcing attendant Ray Ward into a closet and telling him, “Stay there for five minutes or I’ll blow your head off.”
  • Will Rogers not comfortable with his Louisville automobile ride when it hits 60 miles per hour: “Say, we might all get killed.”
  • KMOX in St. Louis to feature organ selections by William Shivelbine, the New Broadway Theater organist, and vocal selections by Dr. Jean Ruff, the Cape Girardeau baritone. The address on “Cape Girardeau,” to have been made by Julien Friant, “will not begiven, the time not being sufficient.”
  • Ernest Wagner, 68, a blacksmith put out of business by the automobile, died.
  • Two marriage licenses not returned to recorder (on the front page, with names, no less).
  • King Solomon takes 40th wife. Says it’s his last wedding, “since this was really and truly a love match.”
  • C. Hale, telegraph operator at Glenallen, writes The Missourian that he was not responsible for the error in a telegram which came here, which due to the transposition of the word “mother” and “motor” caused friends to believe Mrs. Max Weilputez had been drowned. It will be recalled that the message as received here said, “mother drowned,” but should have said “motor drowned.”
  • Geraldine Wilson secretly married to school teacher: Miss Geraldine Wilson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Orren Wilson, 1325 Broadway, was married secretly to Frank Jones of Whitewater Sunday. According to Mrs. Wilson, mother of Geraldine, the ceremony took place in an Illinois town and was a complete surprise to her and Mr. Wilson. Mrs. Jones had attended College High School and was a senior at Central this year and would have graduated in voice in the spring. Mr. Jones has attended Teachers College here and is now teaching at Round Pond School near Allenville.

 

 

 

 

 

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Frank J. Brockmeyer, Blacksmith

“For 42 years, Frank Brockmeyer has lifted, heated, pounded, molded and tempered hot steel,” I wrote in a rare bylined story on The Missourian’s front page August 23, 1967. (The paper doled out bylines about as often as it gave raises.) Unfortunately, the page was microfilmed at a 90-degree angle, so you can’t search on that date. You have to search for August 22, then lay on your side to read it.) Click on any photo to make it larger.

One of the last blacksmiths

Mr. Brockmeyer, who was going to turn 66 on September 17, was one of the city’s last blacksmiths. His shop – a small, sagging brick and wooden structure with a weatherbeaten door – was located at 35 South Spanish.

Massive anvils

Behind the door were the tools of the smithy’s trade: the massive anvils securely anchored to equally massive blocks of wood; the huge wooden tub filled with water; the forge, and the tongs and sledge hammers and grinders and other paraphernalia.

The forge

The work is getting harder, “but any kind of work gets harder when you get older,” he quickly added, with a smile breaking out around the curved pipe usually carried in his mouth. “Lot of people think this is easy, but you try to hold this hot steel with tongs and swing at it with a hammer. Here – feel this hammer. That’s eight pounds,” he said.

Hired as apprentice in 1925

Back in 1925, when Mr. Brockmeyer was apprenticed to Joe G. Schonhoff, owners brought their horses into the building to be shod. After the shop acquired so much equipment that there wasn’t enough room for the operation, they went to the farms to do the job. The original owners started the business in a different location in 1890.

The worst thing you can do

Those days were past. Mr. Brockmeyer said it had been 27 years since he had last shod a horse, and he didn’t appear to have missed the task. “Do you know the worst thing you can do?” he asked. “It’s shoeing a horse laying down.” Noting a perplexed look on his listener [another rare thing: Missourian reporters were not to insert themselves into the story] he continued, “That’s where you have to rope him, throw him, hogtie him and then shoe him.”

You can’t trust newspapers

I was curious to see if the paper had run any other stories about Mr. Brockmeyer. I found his obituary in the May 15, 1983, paper, the day he died at 81. He was born Sept. 17, 1901, at Apple Creek, the son of Theodore and Mary Schumer Brockmeyer. On Sept. 24, 1924, he married the former Mary Eftink of Oran, who survived him. The couple had nine children. His only son tried blacksmithing, but didn’t like it, Mr. Brockmeyer said.

The obit said he was a self-employed blacksmith, operating a shop on South Spanish from 1925 until his retirement in 1963. He couldn’t have retired in 1963, because I shot him working in 1967, back when he shared his philosophy of work: “When things get too rough, I just quit and go fishing.”

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