Tower Rock in Perry County, Missouri, is a sight to see, especially from a small boat in the middle of the Mississippi River. Big Sis and I got to experience just that in 2016 through Southeast Missouri State University's Continuing Education program and the kind folks with the Missouri Department of Conservation, who supplied the three boats that ferried our tour group up the to that big lump of limestone and back again...

Johnny Sheffield wore his Cub Scout uniform, when he appeared in Cape Girardeau in July 1942. (Southeast Missourian archive) Tarzan Jr., swung into Cape Girardeau the summer of 1942, not on strategically placed jungle vines, but aboard a Frisco passenger train...

W. Hinkle Statler (Southeast Missourian archive) When H. Hinkle Statler was elected mayor of Cape Girardeau on April 14, 1940, at age 30, he was the youngest man to ever claim that political plumb. The feat is even more impressive, when one considers that the man he defeated for the job was four-term incumbent Mayor Edward L. Drum...

(Fred Lynch ~ Southeast Missourian) I had a surprise visit in June from a friend from Spring, Texas. After covering all the usual topics of family, friends and work, the conversation turned to genealogy. It was inevitable, really...

On Dec. 14, 1916, after several failed attempts by forward-thinking white residents, Dr. William H. Lawrie Sr., a black physician of Cape Girardeau, announced plans for the opening of a movie theater in the 200 block of Broadway. Several motion picture houses operated in Cape Girardeau at that time, but all were for whites only...

Many of the names of the architects who designed the residences and commercial houses that litter historic Cape Girardeau have survived: Edwin Branch Deane, L.B. Blackwood, J.B. Legg, Thomas P. Barnett, E.W. Parlow, A.F. Lindsay, Fred Dormeyer Jr., Hal Lynch and John Boardman, just to name a few...

Some time in the 1840s, Cape Girardeau's premier builder of homes, Edwin Deane, was contracted to construct a residence for flour mill-owner Ben Horrell of New Orleans. Seeking to escape The Big Easy's oppressive summer heat and unhealthy fevers, Horrell picked Cape Girardeau for his summer home...

In April 1924, school teacher Marjorie Haines Hobbs and her 15-year-old pupil, Ruby Lindsay, were enjoying a hike in the woods north of Cape Girardeau, apparently an exercise the friends frequently enjoyed. As they started to cross a train trestle over Little Flora Creek six miles north of the city, they were startled by an oncoming work train...

I hadn't planned on writing a Memorial Day-themed blog this year. In fact, I had already pulled together an article about a girl who won a Carnegie Medal for saving the life of her teacher. That's before I came across a story from June 1967 about the death of Capt. ...

The remains of a gateway at Elmwood manor served as a backdrop for photographs during a recent tour of the estate. (Sharon Sanders)...

In the days leading up to World War II, as had happened before the War to End All Wars, photographers around the country were besieged with requests for portraits of young men and women and of family groups, mementos of those young men who were preparing for war and for those they would leave behind...

Benjamin Franklin Davis Back in 2011, one of the first blogs I ever wrote dealt with the history of the house at the southwest corner of Themis and Fountain streets, which was then in the process of being restored. I mentioned then that the house was built by Cape Girardeau lawyer Benjamin Franklin "B.F." Davis, who met his unfortunate demise in the spring of 1918...

One of the things I enjoy most about my job is introducing readers to the Cape Girardeau of years past. It's icing on the cake, when I can include images of those yesterdays. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a good photograph of the house I'm writing about today: the Carroll house. The only image I can find of the house is from a pre-1941 aerial taken by G.D. Fronabarger...

In the spring of 1942 residents of the United States had only one thing on their minds: War. Practically every page of the local newspaper had some news about the conflict: Head shots of men and women entering service or being promoted to new ranks and new dangers; rationing of rubber and sugar; classes geared toward airplane mechanics or aviation; cuff-less men's trousers; scrap metal drives and war bond rallies...

In early 1898 Frank Dunlap, with the help of his wife, Mary Charlotte (Van Frank) Dunlap, a Cape Girardeau native, began remodeling the Riverview Hotel on the river in downtown Cape Girardeau. They intended to convert the old hotel into a sanitarium, where the ill might come to regain their health...

Next year, the congregation of St. Mary's Cathedral, pictured above in the early 1900s, will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the church. Just by chance, I found an article relating to the formation of the parish that offered a few details that I had never seen before...

The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, ushering this country into the Great War. Three days later, an advertisement on an inside page of The Daily Republican caught my eye:...

Much has been written about the castle on Bloomfield Road: Elmwood. But did you know there once was a "castle" in downtown Cape Girardeau? It takes a bit of squinting and a lot of imagination, but the Adolph List house near the northeast corner of Broadway and Lorimier Street is described in old Missourian articles as "modeled after a castle on the Rhine." Dr. ...

Fifty years ago this month, workers began the process of stripping the halls and rooms of the old post office/federal building in Cape Girardeau. They salvaged what was deemed usable in anticipation of the old building's demolition later that month...

In 1915 Cape Girardeau historian and railroad entrepreneur Louis Houck published a book entitled "Memorial Sketches of Pioneers and Early Residents of Southeast Missouri." The Naeter Brothers, founders of the Southeast Missourian newspaper, produced the hardbound book...