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A Few Clouds ~ River stage: 22.19 ft. Rising Sunday, May 20, 2012 |
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Old ads of interestPosted Thursday, May 17, at 12:00 AM While hunting for information for a blog, I learned that the one-time occupant of the northeast corner of Broadway and Sprigg Street was the O.O. Bowers Harness Shop. That led me to the happy discovery of a couple of advertisements for that business in The Daily Republican newspaper, the forerunner of the Southeast Missourian. Both ads ran in 1912:...
My life has been blessed with strong-willed women. From my mother Frances and my sisters Susan and Jean (who we lost much too soon), to Vicki and Kathy, Renda, Carol and Terri, my women friends are forces to be reckoned with. But one of the strongest women I have been privileged to know and call friend was Miss Judith Ann Crow, above. For 30-some years, Judy wrote for the Southeast Missourian, reporting on schools, service clubs, and theatrical events...
I'm frequently asked by customers to supply old photographs of Cape Girardeau. One image most requested is the building at the northeast corner of Broadway and Sprigg Street. That's now a lot east of the Last Call bar. Despite my best efforts, I've yet to find a good photograph of that location. The closest I have come is this image from 1947, taken from the south side of the Broadway about a half-block west of Sprigg:...
In a recent blog, I featured the story of the burning of the Third District Normal School in 1902. Someone then posted a comment, asking whether any photos existed of the building before the fire. The answer is "yes," and three views of the big structure are included here...
I'm not much of a basketball fan. March Madness means little to me, except a disruption in the normal television schedule. However, hoopsters from 75 years ago did make an impression on me, when I started to find photos of them in the pages of the Southeast Missourian...
One-hundred-and-ten years ago last Saturday, the landscape of Cape Girardeau changed. On the night of April 7, 1902, fire destroyed the Third District Normal School, which was as much a Cape Girardeau landmark as Academic Hall is today. The proud edifice was constructed in 1875, two years after the founding of the Normal School. ...
While doing research for last week's blog on the Alt residence, later Trinity Hall, I ran across two photographs taken at a costume ball hosted by Capt. George E. and Virginia Cahoon Alt in 1909. They were published in The Missourian on Jan. 13, 1940...
Fred Lynch recently carried a Garland Fronabarger photograph -- on his blog, f8 and Be There -- of the kindergarten class of Trinity Lutheran School. Without a doubt, that picture was made in Trinity Hall, 55 N. Pacific St. The two-story brick was built in 1903 by Capt. George E. Alt and was home to Alt; his wife, the former Miss Virginia Cahoon of Fredericktown, Mo., and their son, George Terrence Alt...
The last of the proud steamboats to be named for the city of Cape Girardeau met its demise in a steady downpour, not plying the waters of the Mississippi River, but moored at St. Louis just above the Eads Bridge. On Dec. 2, 1967, the steamer -- then called the River Queen -- slid slowly into the water. Two days later, a photo of the boat and the story of its sinking appeared on the front page of the Southeast Missourian:...
At the beginning of this month, I used an item about the death of Quincy Adams Gray in 1937. His death was noteworthy because he was the first uniformed police officer in Cape Girardeau history. Here is his complete obituary from March 1, 1937: There are some discrepancies concerning Gray's law enforcement career. ...
Many years ago, back in the days before PowerPoint, I used to make a slide show presentation of old houses and commercial buildings in Cape Girardeau to service clubs, historical societies, classes, etc. The emphasis was always on structures that once graced our town, but fell to the wrecking ball, mostly in the name of "progress."...
In my last blog I dealt with the history of Doyle's Hat Shop. When it closed in 1960, it was 101 years old. That blog was a continuation of an earlier installment about pioneer retail establishments in Cape Girardeau. Two other longtime stores were mentioned in that 1939 article: Vandeven's Grocery and Hirsch's general store...
In a recent blog -- http://www.semissourian.com/blogs/fromthemorgue/entry/45965/ -- I featured a 1939 Missourian article that dealt with the 75th anniversary the Walther Furniture store, and several other stores that were among the longest running retail establishments in Cape Girardeau history...
Towering over its neighbors on North Main Street at the turn of the last century was the Ruehmann Hide & Fur Co. building. Believed to be constructed between 1820 and 1830, it originally housed a flour mill, one of three along Cape Girardeau's riverfront. ...
A Nov. 24, 1939, article published in The Southeast Missourian provides a review of some of Cape Girardeau's longest-operating stores. The story ran in connection with the 75th anniversary of Walther's Furniture Store, 502 Broadway. Although Walther's closed in 1984, recent years have seen new life breathed into the old furniture store building when it was transformed into the Discovery Playhouse, a children's museum...
A long time ago, when I was just a kid, I thought that the memorial marker at Cape Rock Park was THE Cape Rock. You know, part of the promontory Frisco Railroad blasted away in 1904, so that people could ride the rails to the World's Fair in St. Louis...
A recent visit by a Cape Girardeau reader reminded me of the legacy of the Rev. James A. Murtaugh, C.M., a Catholic priest who served the Vincentian parish and schools here, as well as this town's public schools. During a time when civic-minded Girardeans stood up to advocate the construction of a high school here, Murtaugh's was one of the strongest voices calling for the passage of a bond issue to build the facility which became Cape Central High (later Schultz) School...
On the premise that everyone enjoys a good animal story now and then, I've compiled a few that I find humorous. Hopefully, it will break up the monotony of the day. My first offering is a curious tale about alligators. It was published in the Missourian on June 13, 1923:...
In 1976, the United States of America celebrated its bicentennial. Missouri, as part of the festivities, initiated its "Century Farm" to recognize the role agriculture played in the state's development. According to the program's website -- http://extension.missouri.edu/centuryfarm/history.html -- 2,850 Missouri farms, in the same family for 100 years or more, were recognized. Century Farm designations continue...
Residents of the town of Medicine Lodge, Kansas, site of the Carry Nation Home Museum, recently approved a measure allowing Sunday liquor sales for the first time since Prohibition. Nation, the famous vandal-Prohibitionist, lived at Medicine Lodge for about 10 years...
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The Southeast Missourian's resident historian Sharon K. Sanders blogs about interesting pieces of local history pulled from the newspaper's morgue -- the place where our old editions are kept.
Hot topics Old ads of interest(  2 ~ 3:58 PM, May 18)
Mother's Day roses
Broadway corner site of numerous businesses
The Normal before the fire
Lloyd Dale Clippard
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