William Ezra Parlow, who went by "W.E.," isn't the most well known of Cape Girardeau's architects. Perhaps that's because he was only a resident of our fair river town for such a short time. He opened a solo office in the First National Bank building on Main Street in September 1913 and continued his labors here until his death in the summer of 1920...

In 1949, The Southeast Missourian published a series of aerial photographs it called "From the Air" featuring area towns. While many of these features included articles about the towns, the one for Leemon, published Oct. 25, consisted only of the photo above and this brief description: "A few families gathered at various sports in Cape County many years ago and set up small villages. ...

In 1953, the S0utheast Missourian published a story about a Texas-style ranch nestled near the Mississippi River in Cape Girardeau County. Bainbridge Ranch was located at Bainbridge and was home to a herd of cattle raised by the C.C. McSpadden family...

August Shivelbine's Arcade Saloon at Main and Themis streets may have been the "wettest" spot in Cape Girardeau, but the Star Bar at the northeast corner of Good Hope and Sprigg streets was the luckiest. At least that's what was reported when the building was razed in 1923...

A small, yellowed photograph that came to me through the late Katherine Cochran provides an image of Maj. James Francis Brooks, a man I had heard of, but had never seen before...

Tucked away among the photographs that came to me from the late historian Katherine Cochran was this gem, taken at the Schumer Springs health resort hotel...

(Southeast Missourian archive) EDITOR'S NOTE: I received a note from Rick Bohn of Scott City, who helped identify the photograph above. Ricky shared: "Sharon, I'm fairly certain that the recent photo published regarding Father Lilly was misidentified. ...

If asked, you may be able to come up with the name of Lloyd Dale Clippard as the first Cape Girardeau Countian killed during World War II. (He perished aboard the USS Utah during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.) But the name of the first Cape Girardeau man to be killed in action during World War I is a little harder to remember: Randall A. Mattingly...

Ozark Airlines began operating at the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport in 1951, providing passenger service to St. Louis and Memphis, Tennessee. That decade saw a series of improvements at the airstrip, including the concreting of the runways and taxiways...

While the Southeast Missourian has numerous photographs of the various floods that inundated Southeast Missouri over the years, none of those taken by longtime photographer G.D. Fronabarger from 1943 have survived. That was a record-setting flood. It wrecked the previous mark set July 4, 1844, sending the river gauge at Cape Girardeau to 42.3 feet on May 27, according to the Southeast Missourian's edition published that day. The previous record was 42.19 feet...

A quick search though the Missourian's morgue yields hundreds of stories about Cape Girardeau's Rush H. Limbaugh Sr., who at his death in 1996 at age 104 was this country's oldest practicing attorney. But what a researcher may miss in this avalanche of words is Limbaugh's first attempt at winning a political office...

Staff members of Walther's Funeral Home in Cape Girardeau show off the company's new hearse in a photograph likely taken around 1957. From left to right are Lee Townes, Virgil Welch and Tony Hohler. Up until 1968, funeral homes in the area also provided ambulance service for the transport of live patients in need of medical care. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)...

Recently, I re-published a series of articles in this blog dealing with the life and good works of Judge I.R. Kelso. Of the many comments I received about the series, one question stood out: Was Kelso, Missouri, named for I.R. Kelso? The short answer is: No. Kelso, the town, was around a lot longer than Kelso, the jurist...

As a youth of 13, John W. Cook left his home in Scopus, Missouri, with two companions, bound for the bright, white lights of Cape Girardeau. What the trio got for their efforts, after tramping all that way, was a two-day stay in the "dungeon" cell in Common Pleas Courthouse...

The recent visit of the world-renowned Budweiser Clydesdales reminded me that this newspaper houses a photograph, taken about 1910, of a beer wagon at Cape Girardeau's riverfront. While the horses pulling the wagon aren't Clydesdales, and there's only two of them, it's still one of my favorite images in the Missourian morgue...

Freedom Corner in Capaha Park honors those Cape Girardeau County heroes who died in service to this country. But I recently learned that at least one native Girardean is not listed on the memorial: Liston Rhodes Comer. Comer was born here on March 18, 1916, the son of Liston E. ...

This photo published on Monday, March 26, 1956, shows just a few of the youngsters who participated in an Easter egg hunt at Capaha Park. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)...

After reading last week's story about the boom times Neelys Landing experienced in the 20th century, I was curious to see if I could find a bit of history about the river town. That led me to this article published in The Southeast Missourian on Nov. 2, 1949...

In February 1968 officials with the Procter & Gamble Corp. announced plans to build a paper products plant north of Cape Girardeau. A day or so later, The Southeast Missourian newspaper carried a front-page article about the sleepy town of Neelys Landing, predicting that river town might soon see its third boom of the 20th century...

A milestone for the Southeast Missourian newspaper passed quietly last week. On March 1, 1918, this newspaper changed its name from The Daily Republican to The Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian. The change was made as a tribute to the late Harry Naeter, the youngest member of a trio of brothers who resurrected The Republican in 1904. ...