A mystery from 1923

View of the northwest side of Common Pleas Courthouse, undated. (Southeast Missourian archive)

I will admit, I'm not the most disciplined researcher, especially when it comes to my own genealogy. I tend to chase rabbits down rabbit holes.

One of these chases was stirred up recently when I found a story in 1923 describing the opening of one of the basement rooms in Common Pleas Courthouse. The room in question was on the north end of the courthouse and was commonly referred to as the "dungeon."

Published March 21, 1923, in the Southeast Missourian:

'ANCIENT' CELL IN CAPE'S COURTHOUSE OPEN AFTER 30 YEARS

Sealed tight for more than 30 years during which time no human foot had been placed within its walls, an old cell room under the Common Pleas Court was opened Monday afternoon to permit city employees to make needed repairs to the floor of offices above.

Damp and musty from being closed up for years, the room gave forth an odor of decaying wood. The (office) floor, made of small timbers, was fully decayed, while the ground on which the floor reposed, was soft, due to a stream of water which flowed from an unknown source into the cell.

Used as a prison for miscreants following the Civil War, and as a calaboose for city prisoners in later years, the room was closed about 1890 by order of city authorities. The door to it, which opened from the outside, was ordered sealed up, and a small window was boarded up and dirt thrown against it.

Cut through stone wall

To get into the room, it was necessary for the workmen to cut their way through a stone wall, 18 inches thick. There was no entrance except from the door which had been sealed. The room is 25 feet in length, 12 feet wide, and about 12 feet high. The walls are constructed of heavy stone blocks, each one more than 2 feet in length and 18 inches thick. The door and window were the only openings in the room.

There are three rooms under the building, but they are not connected. All had outside entrances, which were sealed up years ago. All were constructed of heavy stone, placed together with good mortar and in a good state of repair now.

No trace of anything which might have been left in the old room could be found today. Old residents say that shackles and chains were used in their time in the old cell, but if they were, they were removed. The only remaining traces of the jail were the decayed boards of the floor.

The cell room is immediately under the office of the clerk of the Common Pleas Court, and a noticeable sinking of the floor in the vault of that office, caused an investigation by workmen. They were working today, placing supports in the cell room to hold up the floor.

I found his article to be interesting, because years ago I did a blog about a man -- John W. Cook -- who returned to Cape Girardeau in 1968 to examine the "dungeon" room where he had spent two days as a youth in the summer of 1907. It seems he and two friends had left Scopus, Missouri, and walked to Cape Girardeau to "see the boats on the Mississippi."

The only problem is, according to the 1923 article, the basement cell had been sealed up in 1890. If that statement is correct, the three youthful runaways could not have been lodged in the Common Pleas. But I don't think the man's memory could have mixed up some other facility for his brief incarceration. The former police/fire department headquarters on Independence Street has an ancient cell, but that building -- now the River Heritage Museum -- wasn't constructed until 1909.

Hence, the mystery.

I'm baffled by the contradictions: How did Cook spend two days confined to a cell in 1907 that was sealed in 1890 and went unopened until 1923?