Jackson's Cape County Courthouse Archives

One of the coolest things Friend Shari and I got to see – and hear – when we were given courthouse tours by IT director Eric McGowen and public works director Don McQuay was the clock that lives in the dome of the Jackson Courthouse.

The outside view is pretty neat (even though a Dec. 17, 1934, Missourian story said that the workmen had to remove the dial on the south side of the courthouse to repaint the numerals because they had faded to the point where they were unreadable).

Tick Tock Tick Tock

The sound of the ancient mechanism ticking away is relaxing. Here’s a short video that shows what it looks and sounds like.

Concessions to modern times

There have been two changes in modern times. The clock was originally wound by hand. Now it’s done by an electric motor. At one time, the clock struck the time on a huge bell in the tower. The huge tolling hammer is still there (you’ll see if when I do the next story on the courthouse), and there’s a cable running up to the clock, but it looked disconnected.

Earlier stories about the Courthouse

Photo gallery of courthouse clock

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

Longtime downtown Jackson business Ross Furniture is moving to East Jackson Blvd. from South High Street, a story in The Missourian reported June 12, 2012. The store had been at that location since 1979. As Cape’s business center has shifted west, I guess it’s only logical that Jackson’s would move east. The furniture store had one of the two bay windows that existed in the Courthouse Square area. It must have been exciting to look up and down the street and toward the courthouse Back in The Day.

Looking north toward Courthouse

Late afternoon isn’t the best time in of the day to shoot a north-south street. I was limited to shooting the businesses on the east side of the street because of dark shadows.

Even though I worked at The Jackson Pioneer, I have very few memories of Jackson’s main drag. I covered lots of governmental meetings and school activities, but there must not have been much happening in the business district.

Well, I have vague memories of a bit of a stir when one of The Pioneer’s editors developed a strange obsession with a local high school girl a third his age. When the girl’s father, one of our largest (and, to be honest, few) advertisers refused to let them date, the editor picketed the father’s place of business. I’m not sure even that was enough to get you fired at The Pioneer, but he didn’t last long. One of these days I’ll get around to writing about the collection of misfits we had working there.

Photo gallery of South High Street businesses

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

Cape Central High Photos

Ken Steinhoff, Cape Girardeau Central High School Class of 1965, spent half a century in the ink-slinging business for papers in Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida.

He retired in 2008 and has been spending time scanning hundreds of thousands of images because “photos once taken as news have grown enough whiskers that they’ve become history.”

Please comment on the articles when you see he may have left out a bit of history, forgotten a name or when your memory of a circumstance conflicts with his.

(His mother said her stories improved after all the folks who could contradict died off.)

Your information helps to make this a wonderful archive and may end up in book form.

Tag: Jackson’s Cape County Courthouse

Jackson Courthouse Clock