*Menu
Search
Submit
Newsletters
E-Edition
Southeast Missourian
*
f/8 and Be There
Fred Lynch
Fred Lynch retired in 2018 after capturing images for the Southeast Missourian since 1975, in that time moving from black-and-white to color, from film to digital and to video. The blog title is a nod to an earlier era of news photography and the 4x5 Speed Graphic: It's more important to be there for the shot than to worry about technical details.
Recent posts
Archives

The Ten-Mile Garden along Highway 61

Posted Wednesday, September 9, 2015, at 12:00 AM

G.D. Fronabarger made these undated pictures of the Ten-Mile Garden between Cape Girardeau and Jackson. The garden was begun in 1931 by the Cape Special Road District with the cooperation of the State Highway Department. Individuals and members of service clubs and garden clubs from both cities participated in the plantings. In 1952, there were 10,000 roses, 1,317 evergreens and 14,000 other varieties of plants along the scenic route.

The garden no longer exists. According to a March 19, 1965 story in the Southeast Missourian, "in the past 10 years the garden has not been maintained by the [state highway] department because of construction work on Interstate 55, widening of sections of Highway 61 and general lack of funds. As a result the garden gradually lost its beauty and is now only a shell of its former grandeur."

Previous blog:

Ten-Mile Garden

Blogger James Baughn writes more about the history of the Ten-Mile Garden in his Pavement Ends blog:

We should bring back the "City of Roses"

Comments

View 2 comments or respond
Community discussion is important, and we encourage you to participate as a reader and commenter. Click here to see our Guidelines. We also encourage registered users to let us know if they see something inappropriate on our site. You can do that by clicking "Report Comment" below.

  • I think it was Reader's Digest that used some of Frony's picture in "color" They took a black and white photo and put dabs of red color where the roses were.

    -- Posted by ksteinhoff on Wed, Sep 9, 2015, at 3:20 AM

  • It was beautiful and many people drove that route just to see it. It was definitely a different era!

    -- Posted by Vwwvwv on Wed, Sep 9, 2015, at 6:08 AM

Respond to this blog