Dennis Scivally Park Archives

December 27, 2013March 16, 2024

Hubble Creek on the Rise

I’ve written before about how Dennis Scivally Park and Hubble Creek in Jackson’s City Park were my go-to places for wild art. I still can’t resist going back there anytime there has been a heavy rain so I can see the water cascade over the low water crossing.

These youngsters are “down at the creek” in the 1960s.

Video of mini-flood

News of torrential rain in Southeast Missouri and a news brief that the city of Jackson is collecting old Christmas trees to combat bank erosion along the creek jogged my memory that I had shot some video in the park on Halloween 2013 after a heavy rain. I’m sure the water was a lot higher during the recent downpours, but this is the best I can do.

Like the video I did on the Bollinger County artesian well, listening to the water is worth 1:17 of your life.

August 13, 2013

A Tale of Two Bridges

Well, three, if you count the old one. I was glad to see the new bridge on Cape Rock Drive at Dennis Scivally Park was open for traffic. I use that stretch a lot if I’m going downtown.

It’s Kingsway to Janet Drive (my old paper route), then Cape Rock to Perry, then Broadway to downtown. I don’t know if it’s really faster, but it feels like there is less traffic.

“Look at the kids in the creek”

Mother and I were coming back from Hamburger Express with an order of catfish (and a double order of potato salad), when she said, “Look at the kids wading in the creek.” You can’t pass up an opportunity like that: a new bridge and kids in the creek. A wild art situation every photographer dreams about.

The whole brood was made up of Hashelders, but Audrey (7) and Graham (5) were from Cape; Colin (3) and Ian (5) were from Virginia Beach. I heard one of them ask, “Are there alligators in this creek?”

I’m going to bet that person was NOT from Cape.

Dennis Scivally Bridge

I’ll count this as Bridge Two. It’s the 1941 bridge built to honor Dennis Scivally.

New bridge cost $508,000

The Missourian said it cost $508,000 to replace the old box culvert structure with a new, wider single span bridge. Click on the photos to make them larger.

March 25, 2013

Name That Bridge

About a year ago reader Steve McKeown sent me a selection of family photos taken by his father, James D. McKeown III. I was scrolling through my directory of scanned photos when these photos jumped out – not because the girls are cute, which they are – but because of the Cape landmark they are posing on.

I’m going to bet you’ve had your photo taken on it at some time in your life.

Gallery of McKeown pictures

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery. If you haven’t figured out where these were taken, I’ll give you a hint.

April 30, 2012May 24, 2015

Location, Location, Location

These shots were on the rolls with the photos Jeane Adams I used for the End of Summer story. Some of her photos were taken at Cape Rock, so that explains the towboat photo. The Mississippi River looks almost as low as it was last fall. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

Google is a wonderful thing. I blew the picture up large enough to be able to see that the towboat was The Albert M. of B & M Towing. A search found that the craft has been built by St. Louis Shipbuilding and Steel Company of St. Louis, located on the site at the foot of East Davis Street in the Carondelet section of St. Louis, where James B. Eads built the Union Navy’s gunboats during the Civil War. It was called the Rohan Boat, Boiler & Tank Company when it was acquired by Herman Pott in 1933 and renamed St. Louis Shipbuilding & Steel Co. It closed in 1984.

Research by someone named Ingo Steller said that the The Albert M. was built in 1965, so it was fairly new when it passed Cape Rock in September of 1966. It was renamed the The Liz Brent, and, most recently, rebranded as The City of Greenville.

Here’s a launch of a towboat I covered in in 1965 or ’66.

Dennis Scivally’s bridge

I had to smile a little when I saw this frame of the stone bridge in Dennis Scivally Park. At least three Facebook friends posted photos of that bridge on their Facebook pages today. It has to be one of the most-photographed landmarks in town since it was built in 1941. Here’s what the park looked like about this time last year.

For some reason, I didn’t shoot anything of Jeane in the park. There’s no telling why you get a feeling for a place on one day and not another.

Beating the heat

I guess I couldn’t persuade my model to hop on this cow cooling off in a pond. Looks a lot like the ones trying to keep from melting in Perry County last summer.