St. Vincent's Cathedral Archives

March 30, 2013April 4, 2015

Images for Easter

Seeing all of the religious pictures on Facebook this week go me to thinking of how many photos of crosses I have taken in the area over the years. Here are just a few, with links to the original stories. You may click on any photo to make it larger. This is an aerial of the Bald Knob Cross taken not long after it was built.

“Judas got a raw deal”

Kenneth Saunders walked more than 4,000 miles to deliver the message that “Judas got a raw deal.”

Trinity Lutheran Church at dusk

I was walking back to my car after shooting another photo when I spotted Trinity Lutheran Church at dusk.

Cape LaCroix Creek marker

This concrete cross has a plaque: “In 1699, Fathers Montigny, Davion and St. Cosme, French missionaries, erected a cross where this stream entered the Mississippi and prayed that this might be the beginning of Christianity among the Indians. The stream has ever since been known as Cape La Croix Creek.” The cross, which had been at the intersection of Kingshighway and Kingsway from 1947 to 2009, when it was moved so a commercial building could be built on the site. Ironically, the marker has never been located close to where the Mississippi River and Cape LaCroix Creek intersect.

Dutchtown cemetery

This cross is in a tiny cemetery located on a high ridge overlooking the ever-diminishing Dutchtown.

Nelsonville cross on a hill

I spotted this cross in Nelsonville, Ohio, on my recent trip back to Ohio University.

Modern-art cross

At first glance, I thought the front of the old Notre Dame High School had been covered with graffiti.

Tower of Memories

Newspaper accounts said the 57-foot tall, 16′ x 16′ Tower of Memories at the Cape County Memorial Park Cemetery would have three stories: the bottom floor would contain an office and the second and third floors would house the Celesta-Vox, touted as “The Voice from the Heavens.”

St. Vincent’s at sunset

I was hoping to shoot the full moon and fireworks when St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church caught my eye.

St. Eisleben Lutheran Church

The St. Eisleben Lutheran Church in Scott City has one of the most unusual steeples I’ve seen.

Altenburg Trinity Lutheran Church

An “inland hurricane” took the steeple off the Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg, but you could never tell it today when you look at the 1867 structure..

July 6, 2012March 27, 2016

St. Vincent’s Church at Sunset

While we were waiting for the full moon and fireworks, Mother and I cruised the downtown area. The green lights on St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church (always referred to as St. Vincent’s) caught my eye as the sun was going down. Click on the photos to make them larger.

Previous St. Vincent’s stories

March 23, 2011April 22, 2021

Greetings from Cape Girardeau

I’m always looking for Cape memorabilia. I think I picked this Souvenir of Cape Girardeau postcard packet at Annie Laurie’s Antiques on one of my recent visits. It could have been mailed for 1.5 cents (without message) when it was new. (Click on any image to make it larger)

Sold at Strom’s News Agency

There’s a tiny note that says Strom’s News Agency, Cape Girardeau, Mo., on this sheet that has all kinds of factoids about Cape. I’m going to guess the information dates back to the late 20s or early 30s.

Bridge, bluffs and steam boats

The Mississippi River Traffic Bridge opened to traffic Aug. 22,1928, so this had to have been published after that.

The rock bluffs have me guessing unless they are on the stretch on South Sprigg south and west of the cement plant. I can’t think of any other bluffs that are that close to the highway on The Kings Highway. I’m not even sure that South Sprigg carried that moniker.

Someone much more ancient that me will have to come up with the last time three steam boats docked on Cape’s riverfront.

Is that the KFVS tower?

These postcards were hand-colored, so the artists had to make assumptions. Unless the facades changed, both the Common Pleas Courthouse and St. Vincent’s College were made of red brick.

The only radio tower that I can think of between Cape and Jackson was the KFVS Radio tower that I photographed in 2009. The one on the postcard doesn’t look like it’s on the crest of the hill but the perspective might be off.

Burfordville, Arena Building and SEMO

The Bollinger Mill and Covered Bridge at Burfordville looks pretty much like when I photographed them last year.

The Arena Building looks pretty much the same, too, but this was years before the Radio-Active Girl Scouts showed up there.

St. Vincent’s, Marquette and SE Hospital

Southeast Hospital certainly has changed a lot since this was taken.

The Marquette Hotel looked pretty close to this in the 60s when it was in the background of a fender-bender I covered at Broadway and Fountain. The artist missed on the color of the facade, though.

St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church has red brick in the real world, too.

St. Francis Hospital long gone

St. Francis Hospital was torn down in 2000.

They must have run out of things to show in Cape, because the rest of the images are from around the Big Springs region.

Curt Teich & Co.

As a photographer, I’m pretty careful about appropriating photos that others have taken because I don’t like mine to get ripped off. In tiny, tiny print there was a note that the Souvenir Folder was © Curt Teich & Co. Figuring the copyright had probably expired – or the company probably had – I Googled the name.

I had seen this style of card over the years, but I didn’t realize exactly how many the company had produced. There’s a whole collection of them that includes images of more than 10,000 cities and towns.

Egypt Mills Trinity Lutheran Church

Joseph Putz Grave

High Hill Church