- A third steamer Cape Girardeau was christened 100 years ago (3/26/24)
- Cape Girardeau christens its namesake (3/19/24)
- The humanist philosophy of Lester Mondale (3/12/24)1
- Cape Osteopathic Hospital opens its doors (3/5/24)
- 8 killed and a million dollars damage done in 1924 tornado (2/27/24)1
- Jackson's militant priest, county recorder at odds over marriage licenses (2/20/24)
- Streaking fad comes to Cape (2/13/24)2
Cape Rock painted pink
Unidentified vandals turned Cape Rock pink in the winter of 1965.
It wasn't the first time (nor the last) miscreants vandalized one of this town's most loved and photographed monument. Shortly after civil engineer Dennis Scivally and the men from the Cape Special Road District hauled the boulder from an old building site on North Main Street to that promontory on the Mississippi River in 1933, vandals "defaced" the rock. You can read about that incident of mindless hoodlumism in one of my earlier blogs: http://www.semissourian.com/blogs/fromthemorgue/entry/45698.
In the 1965 vandalism, would-be artists used brushes to paint "Cape Rock" and the stairs leading to it:
Just who this "Phantom" was was never learned. And his "artwork" didn't remain long.
That same week, members of the Sigma Chi fraternity at Southeast Missouri State College pledged to have their pledges clean up Cape Rock, continuing an effort started by members of Sigma Tau Epsilon and Sigma Tau Gamma the spring before to rid the town of vandals' handiwork:
In the end, the pledges' efforts were aided by a helpful resident:
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