Main Street Archives

January 6, 2018January 13, 2018

2017 Holiday Decorations

Yeah, I KNOW Christmas and New Year’s have passed, but if stores can stock Valentine’s Day candy and Easter bunnies before the first week of 2018 is over, then I can stretch the Happy Holidays a bit in the other direction. Main Street was spiffed up a little this year. Here’s how Main and Broadway looked from high over the city at Fort A. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Some folks were in short sleeves

I figured I should have the bridge in at least one shot, so here it is. I was a little chilly up on the hill, but I saw several brave souls wandering around in short sleeves.

From Common Pleas Courthouse

The color balance is a bit funky, but here’s what downtown looked like from the steps of the Common Pleas Courthouse.

Looking to the north

This was taken from the south Main Street parking lot, almost in front of Hutson’s Furniture. The building on the left would have been the old Woolworth’s building.

South from Middle Main

This was taken at the block north of Themis (see the ugly clock), looking to the south.

Buckner-Ragsdale

This is a familiar icon for anybody who bought a pair of jeans that came with a Tuf-Nut knife.

December 26, 2017January 13, 2018

Hutson’s Last Display

When I shot Hutson’s Furniture’s annual Christmas display early in December, I didn’t spend much time on it. The night was breezy and chilly, and I had already photographed it in 2011 and 2015. (Click on the links to see the earlier stories and photos. If you click on the images, it’ll make them larger.)

Three times and out

One of the reasons I bounced around from paper to paper in Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida is that I hated to plow the same ground time after time.

I’d start a new job, and within a few days or weeks, I’d hit what I would recognize as an annual assignment. The first time would be exciting.

The second year would be a challenge to find a way to do it differently (all the time being aware that no telling how many other photographers had been saddled with this topic before I got there).

When I looked at the calendar and saw that the merry-go-round was starting its third cycle, then I knew it was time to start getting my resume updated.

That’s how I felt when I went back to shoot the Christmas display for the third time in recent years.

This is the last display

Our family didn’t do much business with Hutson’s, so far as I know, so we didn’t get the letter that came out saying the store was going to close after serving the community for 72 years. You can read more about it in The Southeast Missourian.

I wish that I had worked the situation a little harder now. You never know when something is going to be the last time.

November 26, 2015

Hutson’s 2015 Window

You know it’s Christmas season when crowds show up in front of the Hutson Furniture Store’s window on Thanksgiving night. It was a great mix of people: old folks in wheelchairs, teenagers on dates, young parents whose kids pressed their noses and hands against the glass.

I remember the display as being bigger when I was a kid, but EVERYTHING was bigger back when I was a kid. It was a perfect night to stand out on Main Street. The temps were in the low 60s, the winds were calm, and the flash flood watch doesn’t kick in until Friday night.

Here’s what the display looked like in 2011.

Hutson’s Window photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around.

Hutson’s Furniture Store Christmas Display 11-26-2015

It’s that time of year again

Everybody is getting all excited about Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Overspend Wednesday (I made that one up), so I’m going to join the din.

If you are going to shop Amazon anyway, please go to my blog and click on the big red ‘Click Here’ button at the top left of the page (or, this one). That’ll take you directly to Amazon with a code embedded. If you buy something, I’ll make from four to seven percent of your purchase price without it costing you anything.

Think of it as being your painless Christmas present to me.

October 19, 2014

Parking Downtown and at Casino

You wouldn’t have had to fight for parking at noon-thirty on Wednesday August 13 when Ernie Chiles and I flew over the Isle Cape Girardeau Casino.

I didn’t look at it under a magnifying glass, but I DID blow it up a bit on the screen to let me count about 244 cars, two buses and what might be an RV in the parking lots. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Here are some earlier posts about the casino and shoe factory area.

Downtown parking

I looked at a series of frames that showed the downtown shopping area parking lots from the city lot south of Independence to the two lots north of Broadway, plus Water Street and east of Spanish Street. The photos were taken on the same pass, just minutes before the Casino photo. I counted about 210 vehicles ion the downtown shopping district.

[I cheated a bit. Because of the angle, I couldn’t see cars parked on the east side of Main, so I doubled the number of cars parked on the west side, assuming that the same number of parking spaces were occupied on that side.]

(Sorry for the cloud shadows at the top left. I tried get Ernie to lasso them and drag them out of the way, but he said that kind of thing was out of his pay grade.

It would be interesting to know how many of the cars in both locations were owned by employees rather than customers.

Tag: Main Street