History

The second phase of the Ivers Square three-phase renovation is nearly complete, with the third and final phase expected to begin in March 2019, according to Old Town Cape special projects coordinator Sarah LaVenture. Gazebo and site renovations are moving forward as anticipated and there have not been any complications, LaVenture confirmed by email Tuesday...

ATHENS, Greece -- Greece's culture ministry said Tuesday archaeologists have located the first tangible remains of a lost city the ancient Greeks believed was first settled by Trojan captives of war after the sack of Troy. A ministry statement said excavations from September to early October in the southern Greek region of the Peleponnese turned up "proof of the existence of the ancient city" of Tenea, until now known mostly from ancient texts...

Bollinger County Museum of Natural History in Marble Hill, Missouri, is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I with an exhibit highlighting relics gathered by locals, including a compilation of heirlooms by Lisa Santi. Santi serves on the Will Mayfield Heritage Foundation board and is allowing the museum to display her well-preserved 100-year-old U.S. Navy artifacts, once owned by her great-uncle, Samuel Alvin Baker...

LOS ANGELES -- Stan Lee, the creative dynamo who revolutionized the comic book and helped make billions for Hollywood by introducing human frailties in Marvel superheroes such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, died Monday. He was 95...

ST. LOUIS -- A memorial to St. Louis area service members who have died in war was mostly neglected and ignored for years -- but not anymore. The memorial, which was erected in 1936 and dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, has undergone a two-year, $30 million renovation more than doubling its exhibit space, added air conditioning, new wiring and more assembly spaces...

It was quite an incentive package that Spanish authorities offered to settlers willing to move to the Cape Girardeau District: free land and no taxes. The settlers just had to pay a small fee to have their chosen land surveyed. When the Americans took control following the Louisiana Purchase, the luxury of tax-free living quickly disappeared. Even worse, the United States government was reluctant at best to confirm the land grants that the Spanish had promised...

When Grace Jueneman and her daughter, Rodney Jueneman Arbeiter, walked into the Cape Girardeau County History Center on the evening of Friday, Nov. 2, 2018, living history arrived. In 1965, Grace married her husband, Donald Frederick Jueneman, who was a direct descendant of Cape Girardeau founder Louis Lorimier...

JERUSALEM -- More than a decade before the Nazis seized power in Germany, Albert Einstein was on the run and already fearful for his country's future, according to a newly revealed handwritten letter. His longtime friend and fellow Jew, German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, had just been assassinated by right-wing extremists and police had warned the noted physicist his life could be in danger, too...

NEW YORK -- New research strengthens the case people used the chocolate ingredient cacao in South America 5,400 years ago, underscoring the seed's radical transformation into today's Twix bars and M&M candies. Tests indicate traces of cacao on artifacts from an archaeological site in Ecuador, according to a study published last week. That's about 1,500 years older than cacao's known domestication in Central America...

In the 1970s, Larry Braun could be found in the South China Sea, serving in the United States Navy on the USS Midway. The 66 - year – old Vietnam War veteran never wouldhave anticipated back then that four decades later, he would be a retired chemist with a love for digital art and photography...

Delegates attending the 21st Annual Encampment of the Department of Missouri of the Grand Army of The Republic gathered along Themis Street, at the foot of the Common Pleas Courthouse terraces, for a photo in May 1902. Members of a band — possibly Schuchert’s concert band — stand in the foreground, along with spectators. In the center of the crowd, marked with flags and most sporting hats with the distinctive G.A.R. badge, are the Union Civil War veterans...

Documents, pictures and other artifacts from several of Cape Girardeau County’s founding families are coming home, after years in a private collection in Texas, and those involved with the collection’s curation say its importance can’t be overstated...

One hundred thirteen years ago, much was changing in uptown Jackson. Discussion on the street corners in 1905 centered around the replacement of the old brick courthouse of 1872, even though it was certainly more accommodating than the log structure mentioned in Louis Houck's "History of Missouri." Many wanted a new edifice which would be the county's seat of justice and a safe place to keep the county's records...

The Jackson school building once serving the district's segregated black students has been named to the Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation's Places in Peril list for the second year in a row, but school district officials say the building is not in immediate danger...

The owner of historic property along Bloomfield Road should not be entitled to "heritage value" compensation for land taken to construct street improvements and a recreational trail, an attorney for the City of Cape Girardeau told a panel of appellate judges Wednesday...

BOSTON -- James "Whitey" Bulger, the murderous Boston gangster who benefited from a corrupt relationship with the FBI before spending 16 years as one of America's most wanted men, died in federal prison. He was 89. Bulger was found unresponsive Tuesday morning at the U.S. ...

Cape Girardeau’s downtown has a hotel again for the first time in 47 years: the Marriott Courtyard hotel is open for business, said Jeff Maurer, co-developer of the project. The hotel has 91 guest rooms, a conference room, fitness center and laundry, Maurer said, and is actually made up of two structures joined by a third, a free-standing tower in between...

It’s not every small town that gets to celebrate 150 years, and Oran, Missouri, is setting up to party in style for the 2019 sesquicentennial, with a two-day festival and a commemorative book. The celebration itself is scheduled for July 19 and 20 in the city park, said organizer Leroy Eftink, who also manages Just Plain Fun in Chaffee, Missouri...

John Fulbright came to Southeast Missouri with his parents, John and Barbara (Baker) Fulbright around 1820. The family settled along Apple Creek on the Cape Girardeau-Perry County line. The elder John died at age 41 in January 1824. John, his mother, and brother William lived in Perry County, and gradually purchased land totaling 235 acres. ...

The impact of religious attitudes on American political discourse was the topic of Southeast Missouri State University's annual Crader Lecture on Thursday at Glenn Auditorium in Dempster Hall. Guest presenter Jonathan Den Hartog used historical writings from members of the early political party the Federalists to illustrate how, in some ways, American society is still wrestling with how best to create the most functional society possible...

Southeast Missouri State University’s Historic Tuesday Talk on Oct. 30 will feature World War I, according to a university news release. Gary Tyler, outreach specialist at the university’s Crisp Museum, will give the presentation, which is free and open to the public...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The story of Native America taught in U.S. public schools usually begins at contact with European explorers. Children then get lessons about Thanksgiving, maybe the Trail of Tears or the 19th century wars over the removal of tribes in the American West. Rarely discussed is life in the Americas before Columbus' 1492 voyage...

PHILADELPHIA -- In 1964, the first public memorial to the Holocaust in the United States was unveiled in a solemn ceremony in Philadelphia. The bronze--on--black granite sculpture called "Six Million Jewish Martyrs" was the work of artist Nathan Rapoport, who fled his native Poland when the Nazis invaded Warsaw. ...

Contributions of the region's African-American community are memorialized in military grave-markers. Fifteen veterans of United States Colored Troops are buried at Fairmount Cemetery in Cape Girardeau. Though born into slavery, when the opportunity opened, these men courageously volunteered to fight for the Union cause, proactive to pursue and achieve freedom for all. These men survived the war, made Cape Girardeau their home in their freedom, and deserve remembrance...

The 2018 Crader Lecture will feature Jonathan Den Hartog, speaking on "Political Conflict and Religious Struggle in the New Nation: The Federalists and The View from 2018," Southeast Missouri State University recently announced. The lecture, to be held at 7:30 p.m. ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri vehicle owners will be getting new red, white and blue license plates to commemorate the state's upcoming bicentennial. The new plates will be distributed as people renew their licenses over the next couple of years. The goal is to have them all in place before the state's 200th anniversary in 2021...

SEATTLE -- Paul G. Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with his childhood friend Bill Gates before becoming a billionaire philanthropist who invested in conservation, space travel, arts and culture and professional sports, died Monday. He was 65. He died in Seattle from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, his company Vulcan Inc. announced...

ALTON, Ill. -- After last year's deadly clash between white nationalists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, the federal government quietly spent millions of dollars to hire private security guards to stand watch over at least eight Confederate cemeteries, documents from the Department of Veterans Affairs show...

GLORIETA PASS, N.M. -- A makeshift memorial to Hispanic Civil War Union soldiers in an isolated part of northern New Mexico is a typical representation of sites linked to U.S. Latino history: It's shabby, largely unknown and at risk of disappearing...

Former Cape Girardeau County judge Marybelle Mueller, the first female lawyer to serve on the bench in Missouri, was remembered Friday as a judicial pioneer. Mueller of Jackson died Wednesday at Chateau Girardeau Health Center in Cape Girardeau. She was 91...

BOSTON -- What does it take to make a 17th century house livable today? Ask Barbara Kurze, who lives at the James Blake House, which the Boston Landmarks Commission says is the oldest house in Boston. The five-room, two-level house was built in 1661 by Blake, an English immigrant, in Dorchester, now a neighborhood of Boston. Kurze was offered the chance to become live-in caretaker of the property, owned by the Dorchester Historical Society...

Regional baseball teams in the Southeast Missouri region began as early as 1909. At that time, the Pemiscot Argus newspaper reported that nine teams were to be included in a proposed Southeast Missouri Baseball Association. It took another five years before the organization officially formed, in the spring of 1914. Cities that provided teams were Cape Girardeau, Sikeston, Portageville, Chaffee, Caruthersville and New Madrid...

DENTS RUN, Pa. -- Surrounded by dozens of stone-faced FBI agents on a frigid winter's day, Dennis and Kem Parada stared down at the empty hole and knew something wasn't right. The father-son duo spent years combing this bit of Pennsylvania wilderness with high-end metal detectors, drills and other tools to prospect for a fabled cache of Civil War gold. They felt certain they'd discovered the hiding place of the long-lost booty, leading the FBI to the mountainous, heavily wooded area in March...

Cape Girardeau was a boom town at the beginning of the 20th Century. Between 1900 and 1910, the city's population jumped 76 percent. The Frisco Railroad built a rail line in 1904 providing direct connections to both St. Louis and Memphis. Taking advantage of the rail access, the Roberts, Johnson and Rand Shoe Company opened a factory in 1907...

The removal of the gazebo roof in Ivers Square marks the beginning of the second phase of a renovation scheduled for completion next year. Old Town Cape, Inc. special projects coordinator Sarah LaVenture said the project, which is being funded by a $127,650 grant, consists of three parts. The first phase, she said, was blasting and painting the fountain, which was completed earlier this year...

It was time for pumpkin pie when this photograph was snapped on Oct. 1, 1958. Watermelons had been replaced by pumpkins at local markets. Here, Louis Fischer and his father, Jeptha Fischer, at right, of Bell City, Missouri, brought one of the first truckloads of pumpkins to Cape Girardeau for sale. (G.D. FRONABARGER ~ Southeast Missourian archive)...

Bill Bock is at the Saxon Lutheran Memorial in Frohna, Missouri, replacing the windows in the two-story Fenwick cabin built around 1835. A direct descendant of the immigrants who settled the area in 1838-1839, he can speak German and has been volunteering at the memorial since 1961, when renovations of the site first began. He is also on the advisory board for the memorial and was the contractor for building the visitor’s center...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- A collection of Thomas Hart Benton paintings highlighting the destruction of World War II are on display as a set for the first time in nearly two decades. The Columbia Missourian reported the Perilous Visions exhibition features the eight-painting "Year of Peril" series and two others from the famed Missouri artist. ...

The old streets of Jackson were deserted except for the occasional wagon that bumped along carrying those who had perished of the Asiatic cholera and bilious fever that raged in the countryside. It was the summer of 1852 and Cape Girardeau County's "round two" of the disease.... The first onslaught of 1833 took 128 citizens...

Wayne County is celebrating its bicentennial in 2018, and the man in the photo is one of the prominent men in late 19th century Wayne County. Edward P. Settle was born July 17, 1834, shortly after his parents, the Rev. William W. and Sarah (Barrett) Settle came to Missouri. His father bought government land in southern Madison County...

MILLVILLE, Ky. -- The whiskey quit flowing decades ago from a landmark Kentucky distillery housed in a picturesque castle. Nearly a half-century of neglect reduced the one-time tourist draw to a decaying relic. Now, two newcomers to the whiskey business have resurrected the Old Taylor distillery and renamed it. And along with bourbon and rye, they hope once again to generate tourism...

Excavation is underway in Capaha Park as the city’s plans to install a splash pad and other amenities moves forward. Cape Girardeau Parks and Recreation director Julia Jones said in addition to the splash pad, the city will install a restroom facility to replace portable toilets and renovate the existing nearby pavilion...

BOSTON -- It's an expansive and quintessentially Kennedy photo album. Here's a young, shirtless JFK, baring six-pack abs and smirking poolside while striking an un-presidential pose. There's Rose Fitzgerald not-yet-Kennedy in her Sunday best, long before she'd become the family matriarch and trade girlhood grins for imperious stares. ...

CAIRO -- Egypt officials say archaeologists have discovered a statue of a lion's body and a human head in the southern city of Aswan. The Antiquities Ministry said Sunday the sphinx made of sandstone was found in the Temple of Kom Ombo during work to protect the site from groundwater...

A project to build a monument to honor United States Navy veterans, which is several years in the making, is moving along to the next phase. The idea for a project to design and build a monument honoring Southeast Kansas Navy veterans, which would eventually be placed at the Fort Scott National Cemetery, came about in 2008 with members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 1165 honor guard, according to Daryl Roller, a U.S. Navy veteran formerly of Fort Scott...

The Spanish influenza pandemic hit the United States hard in the fall of 1918. The pandemic caused cities to shut down and shops to close. The city leaders in Cape Girardeau ordered public gatherings at churches, schools, conventions and theaters to cease from Oct. ...