EDITOR'S NOTE: This is Garret Wright's final article for the Southeast Missourian. He has written a history column for this newspaper since 2018. The Missourian thanks him for his contributions and wishes him well in the future. Known as the Great River Road or Blues Highway because of its link to the musical genre, United States Highway 61 begins in Wyoming, Minnesota, and terminates in New Orleans. ...

Axtel Carl Nielson lived in Cape Girardeau for 25 years, from the 1910s to 1930s, with his wife Josephine and son Richard. The couple was married in Chicago in 1905 and had at least two children prior to moving to Missouri. During his time in Cape Girardeau, he worked as an auditor for Harrison Securities Inc. ...

Kentucky-born Thomas Ewing Tribble was 5 years old when the Civil War broke out. At the time he was living with his parents, Nelson and Henrietta, along with his brothers, including John William, and sisters in Simpson County, Kentucky. There are no details on his education, but according to the 1870 census for Simpson County, when he was 13, he was working on the family farm. ...

The Spanish-American War has been labeled America's forgotten war because of its short duration. The Cuban portion was three months long and took place entirely on Cuban soil. Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders' charge up San Juan Hill has been the most recognized event from this war. ...

Allen Laws Oliver Sr. and his wife, Olivia, traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the second inauguration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Jan. 20, 1937. Allen wrote of their experience three days later to their sons, Allen L. Oliver Jr. and John L. "Jack" Oliver...

Brothers Alfred and Silas James Symons and their wives emigrated from England to Jackson in June 1889. They immigrated primarily because their brother, Frederick "Fred" Symons, was the local rail agent for the Missouri Pacific Railway Co. All the brothers had married and began the process of becoming naturalized citizens shortly after they arrived. ...

The 1902 election for the Missouri House of Representatives for Cape Girardeau County pitted Robert Burett Oliver (Democrat) against John D. Porterfield (Republican), George C. Thilenius (Independent Republican) and Thomas H. Jenkins (Progressive). Oliver won with a 633-vote advantage over Porterfield: 2,149 to 1,486. ...

In February 1944, news arrived in Cape Girardeau that Harris Field would be discontinued by the Army Air Corps as a training facility for pilots the following month. With nearly 60-acres of real estate soon to be in the hands of the lessee, Defense Plant Corp., city officials acted quickly to see if the federal government might temporarily lease the field to them for a year. ...

Manfred James Holmes and his son, Parker Manfred Holmes, owned approximately 200 acres of adjoining farmland in New Madrid County, Missouri, near the town of Risco in the 1920s and 1930s. It is unclear when they originally purchased their property. According to the 1920 census, the Holmes family lived in Normal, Illinois, where Manfred was a professor at Illinois State Normal University (now Illinois State University). ...

The first known epidemic of yellow fever in the United States was in the 1690s. Outbreaks would continue to occur in the southern United States until 1905. One hundred twenty years ago this month, Aug. 27, 1900, U.S. Army doctors James Carroll and Walter Reed discovered mosquitos were the carriers! Carroll infected himself with a mosquito bite. ...

Congress declared war on Germany on April 2, 1917. To gain public support, President Woodrow Wilson created the Committee on Public Information. Through this propaganda office, David M. Ryerson formed a group called the Four-Minute Men in Chicago later that year. ...

In 1930, Robert Burett Oliver Sr. typed a memoir in which he discussed the history of his family and allied families. Several chapters mention life at the family home of Pleasant Gardens in Cape Girardeau County. The following is a brief look at his remembrances of his father...

Marie Marguerite Oliver was born in Jackson on Dec. 18, 1890, the youngest child and only daughter of six children born to Robert Burett Oliver Sr. and Marie Watkins Oliver of Cape Girardeau. A bright child, she graduated from the State Teachers College in 1907 before continuing her studies at Randolph Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and National Park Seminary in Forest Glen, Maryland, where she graduated in 1910...

Many Europeans immigrated to the United States during at the turn of the 20th century. They came for a variety of reasons. One of those immigrants was Daniel Edward Gunn. Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on April 9, 1887, he was picked up while selling newspapers at the age of 8 by the local authorities and taken to live in an orphanage for a few years. ...

Former U.S. congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver is best known for popularizing Missouri's motto "The Show-Me State" in a speech he gave in 1899. He was a lifelong Democrat who served the citizens of Missouri from 1897 to 1905 as representative. He decided to not be re-nominated in 1904, working instead as State Insurance commissioner for five years before becoming assistant U.S. Treasurer in St. Louis in 1913...

The Anti-Saloon League of America was founded in Ohio in 1895. The organization quickly spread nationally. The purpose of the group was to end the sale and distribution of liquor in the United States. State chapters popped up throughout the nation. Missouri's chapter was organized in 1890. ...

On Aug. 29, 1916, the United States Congress assigned a committee of three -- Adm. Frank F. Fletcher, Cmdr. Frank Clark and Naval Engineer R.E. Bakenhus -- to select a location for a new U.S. Navy armory plant to produce steel for their vessels. Several Missouri cities submitted bids for the location including Hannibal, Louisiana and Cape Girardeau. Numerous other cities in the surrounding states also submitted bids, including Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee...

Lula (Lulu) and Leona Belchamber were the daughters of James Albert Belchamber Sr. and Louvenna Elizabeth "Vinnie" Peterson. James's father, Daniel Belchamber, came from England, while his mother, Phoebe, was born in Canada. The family moved to Bollinger County, Missouri, in the 1890s. Lula Etta was born Aug. 6, 1889, in Bismark, Missouri, and Leona Alice on Nov. 23, 1896, in Glen Allen, Missouri...

When Dr. Floyd Kinsolving died May 5, 1942, at Presnell Hospital in Kennett, Missouri, news of what was found at his home in Hornersville, Missouri, went "viral" in today's parlance. Found on his property were every car he ever owned since 1911, piles of tires as a rubber reserve, and $160,000 in the basement. News of his eccentric habits made it all the way to a newspaper in Plattsburgh, New York...

Weldon Albert Stein was born in Cape Girardeau on Nov. 29, 1911, a son of Arthur C. Stein and May Sheppard. He graduated from Cape Girardeau Central High School in 1928 and Southeast Missouri State Teachers College with a bachelor of arts degree in 1933. ...

Elaine "Tommie" Davis opened the Co-op Cut Rate Drug Store, at 40 N. Main St., in Cape Girardeau on Oct. 18, 1933. An article ran in a 1941 issue of "Drug Topics" stating that Davis's store was one of the first to operate a Women's Department in a drug store. ...

The United States entered First World War on April 6, 1917, when Congress declared war on Germany, followed by a similar declaration on Austria-Hungary on Dec. 7. American troops would not be sent en masse until 1918. With war being waged, the Missouri National Guard was federalized and sent overseas in August 1917. ...

The men and women who served and lived during World War II are passing away each day. What they left behind are photographs, letters, diaries and oral histories of a nation's sacrifice. Factories were retrofitted for war production, and citizens endured food and gas rations, while enthusiastically supporting war bond drives. The Vandivort family of Cape Girardeau had two sons who enlisted, Arthur Clayton and William Soresby. One made the ultimate sacrifice in defending our nation...

Private George W. Shinn was born on May 29, 1841, in Canton, Illinois, to John W. and Elizabeth Shinn. Shinn worked as a clerk for his father's drugstore prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. On May 25, 1861, he enlisted in the Union Army in Peoria, Illinois, and served with Company H of the 17th Illinois Infantry...

John Clayborn "Clabe" Reynolds relocated his family to Morehouse, Missouri, from Pope County, Illinois, in the 1910s. He married Louella Harmon Reynolds on Oct. 23, 1904. Four children were born to this marriage: Charles "Baker" Reynolds, Thelma Reynolds, Nell Reynolds, and Roy Reynolds (died in infancy)...

Have you ever meet a tinsmith, cooper, limeburner, trader, or stone mason? No? You are not alone! These professions, once common in 1850s Cape Girardeau County, have become extinct or extremely rare. According to the 1850 federal census for Cape Girardeau County, there were 13,912 residents. ...

On Oct. 29, 1931, Cape Girardeau attorney and active civic leader, Russell Lee Dearmont, announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor of Missouri. He ran on the platform of having previous state government experience, wanting to reorganize state government, and supporting the farmer and teacher. ...

Southeast Missouri has experienced flooding of the Mississippi River hundreds of times since at least 1844. The marks on the floodwall in Cape Girardeau denote flood stage heights in 1844, 1943, 1973, and 1993. One that is not listed is the flood that occurred in April 1922. Rains swept through Missouri and other states on April 10. This deluge caused tornadoes, property damage, deaths, and subsequent area flooding...

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...

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. ...