Capaha Park Archives

September 16, 2011September 16, 2011

Capaha Park Lagoon Algae

Scott Moyers did a story in Tuesday’s Missourian about Capaha Park Lagoon’s algae problem. This isn’t exactly a new problem. Here are some pictures from the mid and late 1960s when there was a cleanup campaign on. I’m not sure when they were taken, nor who the subjects are. A couple of the men look familiar, but I’m going to let someone else put names to the faces.

Lagoon dates to early 1900s

Scott’s story says the 3.5 acre lagoon was put in shortly after the property was transformed into a fairgrounds. The city acquired it in 1914. Generations of Cape Girardeans have enjoyed fishing, ice skating, duck feeding and even jumping into the lagoon.

Lagoon has become shallow

Over the years, silt has filled up the lagoon to the point that it’s only about five feet deep, about half of the 10 to 12 feet years ago. Algae grows in warmer, shallower water, particularly when the summer has been as hot as this year’s. The lagoon hasn’t been dredged in about 20 years, the story pointed out. What makes me uncomfortable is a comment from Mayor Harry Rediger, who said that the permanent solution is to come from the parks department’s creation of a strategic plan for the entirety of Capaha Park.

“Another idea is to change the concept of the lake a bit.” he said. “I can’t report on it just yet, because it’s still in the planning stages. But we do intend to fix that in some manner – it’s just that how it’s to be fixed has yet to be determined.”

When city officials start talking about making changes to something that’s been a part of the community as long as Capaha Park, warning flags start waving. I look at all the park amenities that we grew up with: the lagoon, Cherry Hill, the band shell, the train from the cement plant, the pool (oops, guess we can scratch that one) and I don’t see many things I’d change. When you hear the drumbeats for “improving” Capaha Park, better start going to meetings and letting your voice be heard. We know how Bloomfield Road has been “improved.”

November 2011 aerial of Capaha Park

Broadway and Southeast Hospital are on the right. The pool is empty, but not razed yet.

Gallery of Capaha Park Lagoon photos

A collection of photos taken over a period of time. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

June 26, 2011September 22, 2011

Capaha Pool: Erased

Wife Lila and I hadn’t been back to Capaha Park since the pool was razed. When we pulled into the loop, there was an audible gasp from the seat next to me.

The pool where she had been a lifeguard for 10 years had been erased. The city didn’t even have the tact to leave behind a reminder like the oval that had been the old pool in the background of the photo.

Fighting back tears, she said, “I don’t know how you can feel this way about something that’s not a person.”

Salvaged half a brick

There were a few brick fragments sticking out of the mud from last night’s rains. The first one I brought her was red, but neither of us could remember any red brick being used in the building. Later, Bill /Jacqie Jackson, Lila’s lifeguard colleague said that there was one course of red brick used as an accent in the pool building.

I’ll have to take his word for it. It must have been used in an interior wall, because I don’t see it in any of the photos I took just before the wreckers moved in.

I went back to retrieve a tan brick that was more like we both remembered.

Laurie scored brick and fence cap

Lila gave Jacqie her half-brick because Niece Laurie Everett, of Annie Laurie’s Antiques fame, scored her a whole brick and the cap off one of the fence posts while demolition was in progress.

Earlier stories about Capaha Pool

June 13, 2011December 29, 2011

Do These Photos Say Cape?

I have a friend who was looking for some stock photos of Cape to use as headers on a web page. I started poking around and came up with these old and new photos that I think capture some of the spirit of the town.

The biggest challenge was finding pictures that would fit the exact format shape – a skinny horizontal.

Photographers HATE to shoot for shape

Photographers HATE going out to shoot for shape. We always figured that was a sign that the page designer was too lazy to work with the most story-telling photos on deadline. He wanted to dummy the page early so he could go home early.

Photographers, of course, believe that every photograph is perfectly composed. Some would express that conceit by printing their photos “full frame” with black borders that indicated that the picture had not been cropped. (Guilty as charged.)

Of course, as a guy who had to do his own layouts, I found that sometimes cropping the photo made the page look a lot better. It was OK if I did it; it was a mortal sin if someone else did it.

Photo gallery

Since I’m not exactly sure what my friend is looking for, I’ve pulled together photos that you’ve seen before and some that were in the pipeline. I’m curious to see what you think best says “Cape Girardeau.”

If she uses any, I’ll post the website address. As always, click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

June 2, 2011September 18, 2011

Capaha Rose Display Garden

Whenever I think of the Capaha Rose Display Garden across from Cherry Hill, I think of Gladys Stiver, so I asked her granddaughter, Shari, to fill me in on the place.

Here’s what she sent me:

What most folks call the Capaha Rose Garden was the 1953 brainchild of best friends and demon gardeners Arla Harris and Gladys Stiver.

By 1955, they’d founded what was officially called the Rose Display Garden at the northwest corner of Capaha Park, and by sometime in the 1960’s had managed to get the garden certified as a Rose Test Garden by the AARS, the All-America Rose Selections, a national society which tests all new roses and selects annual winners in a variety of categories. In the garden world, this is a really big deal.

AARS Test Garden

There are only 10 gardens nationwide now certified by the AARS as test gardens, and in the 1970’s there were only about 135. Very fitting for The City of Roses and a huge achievement back then for the local garden clubs.

The Garden has always been maintained by the volunteers from the various garden clubs making up what was then the Cape Girardeau Council of Garden Clubs, with each club assuming responsibility for a number of the up to 42 beds in the garden.

Slave labor, however, has also always been welcome, and I spent most Saturday mornings of my childhood weeding beds and deadheading spent blooms under the critical eye of my grandmother, Gladys “Ike” Stiver, who rewarded these efforts with a banana split at Sunny Hill Restaurant. In the 1950’s, when I worked there, competition among garden clubs to maintain the plants and beds was fierce.

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