History

The likeness of Susan E. Blow (1843-1916), sometimes called the "Mother of the Public Kindergarten Movement," is on one of the panels of famous Missourians found today at the Cape Girardeau waterfront. A native Missourian, Blow was born to a wealthy family whose Mississippi riverfront home burned to the ground in St. Louis' great fire of 1849. Not long after, a deadly cholera epidemic swept through the city, killing an estimated 7,000 people. ...

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. ...

Southeast Missouri State University has narrowed its search for a new president to three finalists: a college president in New York state, and two former college presidents from Ohio and Louisiana; the finalists are William C. Merwin, president of the State University of New York College at Potsdam; Dale F. ...

A century-old warehouse in downtown Cape Girardeau, described by its owner as "the ugliest building" on the south end of Main Street, will be repurposed as retail and restaurant space, pending approval of tax abatement incentives by the city that will help make the project possible...

The Cape Girardeau County Archive Center announced new hours Thursday afternoon. The archive center, 112 E. Washington St. in Jackson, will now be open Mondays, according to a news release from director Marybeth Niederkorn. The center's new hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturdays...

Cattle whose food was decimated by prairie wildfires that swept through parts of Oklahoma and Kansas in recent weeks soon will be eating Missouri hay; Gerald Bryan, University of Missouri Extension specialist at the Jackson office, is organizing a statewide "hay lift" to assist ranchers whose pastures and hay were destroyed by wildfires...

FULTON, Mo. -- A small mid-Missouri college is preparing to celebrate the 75th anniversary of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech in which he warned of the former Soviet Union's expansion of communism, ushering in the era of the Cold War...

The Cape Girardeau Civil Air Patrol has received a Cessna 172 airplane from the Missouri Wing; the patrol has been trying to secure an aircraft for a long time, says Capt. Virgil Green; the plane will be used for emergency services and search and air rescues...

To the casual observer, old Saint Francis Hospital is an aging, dilapidated building that serves as just another canvas for graffiti and vandalism; but State Rep. Mary Kasten paints a much brighter picture; she and a local committee of social service representatives and interested citizens want to renovate the 83-year-old brick building for use as a family resource center; it would house various social service agencies under one roof, making it more efficient and convenient for those who need government assistance.. ...

Life isn't about finding your destiny; instead, it is a journey for peace and balance found in a relationship with Jesus Christ, said Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr., a retired judge advocate general for the U.S. Navy; Schachte spoke to about 1,200 people Friday morning at the ninth annual Mayor's Prayer Breakfast, sponsored by the Christian Business Men's Committee of Cape Girardeau and the mayors of Cape Girardeau and Jackson; the hour-long program and breakfast was held at the Show Me Center.. ...

While alternative sources of funding are being pursued for the Mississippi River bridge project at Cape Girardeau, the Missouri Highways and Transportation Department has placed the project on its tentative bidding schedule for May; Jim Murray, the department's Sikeston-based district engineer, said the state must secure federal funding by late March before accepting bids in May on the project; he said the $52 million bridge project was placed on the bidding schedule to give contractors plenty of time to consider it.. ...

FROHNA, Mo. -- East Perry Lumber Co. started its annual spring planting early this year; the Frohna-based sawmill, which annually produces up to 12 million board feet of kiln-dried, finished lumber -- mostly red and white oak, poplar and ash -- established its own hardwood timber farm in East Perry County a quarter century ago; "We plant 30,000 new trees each year now," said Natalie Petzoldt-Naeger of the company; the crop includes red oak, poplar, ash and walnut...

ROCKVIEW, Mo. -- There are no zoning laws, no town ordinances and no elected officials in this community; but its not a town without history, and residents hope to make history by incorporating sometime soon; Rockview, located about 2 miles from Chaffee, Missouri, along Route M, began as a railroad settlement; its name likely came from the view atop its rocky hills, where the railroad once operated a quarry; no rocks are quarried now and trains seldom stop along either set of tracks that split the community; but residents aren't split over a decision to form a sewer district and eventually incorporate.. ...

Lutheran Hour Sunday is observed Sunday at Hanover Lutheran Church, 2949 Perryville Road; Dr. Dale A. Meyer, Lutheran Hour speaker, addresses the Adult Bible Class at 9 a.m. and preaches the sermon at the 10 a.m. worship service; Meyer is the second guest speaker in the church's celebration of its 150th anniversary...

An off-duty police officer has been occupying his mornings by staking out various Southeast Missourian newspaper racks, part of an effort to deter newspaper theft totaling more than $45,000 a year; Mark Kneer, circulation director for the newspaper, says as many as 8,000 newspapers are stolen from Southeast Missourian racks each month...

In recognition of Black History Month, the Southeast Missourian remembers Lincoln University, a historically black college/university (HBCU), started in 1866 in Missouri’s state capital, Jefferson City. “Lincoln University is a great symbol, in my mind, to the desire of Abraham Lincoln to fulfill the goals of the Civil War: emancipation, freedom and the right to be citizens,” said Frank Nickell, who taught in Southeast’s history department for 43 years. ...

Cape Girardeau County sales tax figures for February dipped 13% below the same month last year, flattening total revenue figures for 1996; the county's half-cent sales tax brought in $190,998 this month, significantly lower than the $220,206 received in February 1995...

Federal funds for three programs designed to help low-income and first-generation college students at Southeast Missouri State University were mismanaged, an internal audit found; earlier in the week, the university fired the man who oversaw the programs as director of Student Educational Opportunity Programs...

The Cape Girardeau City Council last night unanimously approved a development agreement with Boyd Gaming Corp., after company officials promised to assist in counseling and treatment programs for compulsive gamblers; the Cape Girardeau Ministerial Alliance had pushed for the provision...

U.S. Rep. Mel Hancock, a Springfield, Missouri, Republican, says state lawmakers and courts have short-circuited the constitutional amendment that bears his name; local lawmakers agree but say Hancock's latest proposal might not be the best way to keep taxation under control; the original Hancock Amendment, approved by voters in 1980, requires that state revenues grow no faster than Missourians' incomes; last week, Hancock proposed more specific legislation to require voter approval of all state tax, fee or license increases.. ...

As a young boy, Bernard "Barney" Kraft loved running errands for the family bakery. It was an adventure, and after all, it was all he knew. His German family had always lived above their bakery: His father, Adam; mother, Elizabeth (nee Huhn); and the six children, Gertrude, Ferdinand, Bernard, Otto, Bertha and Katherine...

As the filing deadline for statewide office approaches, hardly a day goes by that Paul Sander doesn't hear about the District 157 seat; now Jackson's mayor and most famous non-candidate wants to set the record straight: he's not filing for state representative; Sander says he's happy serving Jackson residents as mayor and plans to run again in 1997...

Without fanfare or celebration, new Highway 74 from Kingshighway to Sprigg Street is scheduled to officially open to traffic tomorrow; motorists traveling the new highway will encounter only one stop: West End Boulevard, where a traffic signal with in-ground sensors has been installed; the other 17 blocks are free of intersections or merging traffic...

The City of Cape Girardeau and Boyd Gaming Corp. have come to terms on a development agreement expected to be approved and signed over the next two weeks; the development calls for a $51.1 million project -- consisting of a 1,600-passenger riverboat casino, parking garage and other land-based facilities such as a restaurant and lounge -- to be located just north of the Broadway floodgate...

The first Black member of the Southeast Missouri State University Board of Regents, the Rev. Dr. Samuel W. Hylton Jr. was appointed in 1987. The longtime St. Louis clergyman died in 2018 at the age of 91. According to Southeast's Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, African American enrollment increased to nearly 800 students during the 1980s, with many Black students recruited from the St. Louis area...

Nearly 26 years ago, on May 31, 1995, after intense lobbying by the late retired Air Force Col. Charles Woodford of Cape Girardeau and others, then-Gov. Mel Carnahan signed a bill establishing the mule as Missouri's state animal. A mule is a hybrid animal, the offspring of a female horse (mare) and a male donkey (jack). ...

Brian Miller made "Be prepared" a way of life; Miller, Cape Girardeau County's first and only emergency preparedness director, died yesterday after a heart attack at the age of 50; Miller suffered a heart attack at his Jackson home around noon Thursday, one day after his release from a local hospital following another heart attack a week ago...

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- Hartmarx Inc. will phase out its manufacturing operation at the Thorngate Ltd. plant in Chaffee this year, probably this spring or summer; the Chaffee plant, which manufactures sportswear for Hart, Schaffner & Marx, employs approximately 150 people; the closure won't effect the Cape Girardeau Thorngate plant, which employs more than 650...

Older Cape Girardeau residents may remember A.Q. Fulbright, a local distributor for Phillips Petroleum Co. What you may not know is the story behind his unusual middle name, which was "Quanah." The story begins with A.Q. Fulbright's uncle, Andrew Jackson "Cot" Fulbright. ...

Lyn Dempster has resigned from the Southeast Missouri State University Board of Regents after suffering a slight stroke; the Sikeston, Missouri, businesswoman, who has been an enthusiastic backer of the university for years, submitted her letter of resignation to Gov. Mel Carnahan Feb. 7;...

A second, unnamed gaming corporation has expressed an interest in locating at Cape Girardeau; City Manager Michael Miller confirmed late last week that the city has received a letter from a law firm stating a casino client would be interested if negotiations with Boyd Gaming Corp. didn't work out; meanwhile, talks between the city and Boyd Gaming are continuing...

The Rev. Cecil and Darlene Barham have accepted the senior pastor position at First Assembly of God Church in El Centro, California; they served Bethel Assembly of God Church here from January 1989 to Jan. 14, 1996; during the search for a new pastor, Youth Pastor Phillip Roop and Associate Pastor Jay McDonald have assumed the roles of interim pastors...

The closing of Eagle Snacks Inc. will have far-reaching effects, including the operation of Eagle I in Cape Girardeau; Eagle Snacks, headquartered at St. Louis, was founded as a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch Co. Inc. in 1979, and was the No. 2 snack-food producer in the U.S.; although annual revenues topped $350 million, the company was losing money, according to Anheuser-Busch, which announced Wednesday it will get out of the snack business; Eagle I, which distributes Eagle Snacks from Missouri to Nashville, Tennessee, and south to New Orleans, Louisiana, will maintain distribution until March 15.. ...

Churches in Cape Girardeau are teaming up in an effort to keep marriages from breaking up; the Cape Girardeau Ministerial Alliance has endorsed a community marriage policy that will require couples to undergo four months of marriage mentorship before they can be married in local churches...

When this reporter was a child, his late grandfather sometimes used an expression directly tied to the nation’s brief experiment known as the Pony Express. When a car passed him on an interstate highway at a high rate of speed, he was heard to remark, “That guy is really carrying the mail!” Months before Abraham Lincoln was elected as 16th U.S. president, a Missouri freight company, Russell, Majors and Waddell, had an idea for more rapid delivery of mail between the Show Me State and California. ...

WASHINGTON -- Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a titan of American academia, business and diplomacy who spent most of the 1980s trying to improve Cold War relations with the Soviet Union and forging a course for peace in the Middle East, has died. He was 100...

It's one of the great Hollywood ironies Christopher Plummer didn't like the film that made him a legend. He was an actor's actor and had cut his teeth doing Shakespeare. "The Sound of Music," he thought, was sentimental shlock. And he wasn't alone -- reviews at the time were famously terrible. Then, like a personal curse, it would go on to become a universally beloved classic. He'd played Henry V and Hamlet, and yet Capt. von Trapp, he said in 1982, followed him around "like an albatross."...

Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau officials worry a city plan to buy 16 acres of the old St. Vincent's College property could delay construction of a new CVB building; the city could tap into the Convention and Visitors Bureau Fund to buy the property; the CVB is facing a March 1 deadline to move out of its rented office space...

Five train enthusiasts are choo-choosing to restore a Jackson icon to full operation. Steam Team members Billy Mikoliza, Nathan Beasley, Aspen Welker, Matthew Terlunen and Lucas Smith are taking the first steps to restore the No. 5 locomotive at the St. Louis Iron Mountain Railway Station in Jackson...

The Southeast Missouri State College Golden Eagles were no stranger to big stages. They'd played all over the country. But a January 1971 gig in the Sunshine State was beyond big. It was super. Renowned band director LeRoy Mason gathered the 160-strong band to break the news: The Golden Eagles would perform at halftime of Super Bowl V in Miami...

Incumbent Jack Rickard and challenger Jay Purcell will be the candidates in the Ward 3 election to be held April 2; they outpaced Dru Reeves in yesterday's primary. The U.S. Coast Guard closed the upper Mississippi River, from St. Louis to Cairo, Illinois, late Monday, but yesterday employees of Luhr Bros. ...

The day dawned cloudy and threatening. An omen? Mid-morning, the clouds parted, and the day unfolded as planned for the Sept. 30 NAACP Picnic Day at the new Fairground (now Capaha) Park, as reported by Hattie Jones for the St. Louis Argus newspaper, Oct. 3, 1919...

Bill Duschell shivered in his truck as he watched his home burn to the ground yesterday morning just off County Road 635 on Welch Pass; a few minutes before making it to the truck, the 23-year-old Dushell awoke to find his home filled with smoke and flames; he was the only tenant of the duplex who was at home at the time; he, his girlfriend and a roommate lost everything in the blaze; tenants in the other half of the duplex, newlyweds Kevin and Becky Thompson, lost most of their belongings as well.. ...

Continuing brutally cold weather brought Mississippi River barge traffic to a halt yesterday, leaving two tows and their loads frozen immobile near Cape Girardeau; one, the Dennis Hendrix of Jeffersonville, Indiana, is stranded just a couple hundred meters north of the water system pump house at Cape Rock Park; the other, based in Minneapolis, is stopped slightly upstream but still visible from the park; local barge workers say ice hasn't stopped barge traffic on the Mississippi since 1979...

Pastor Ron Green and wife, Renee, of Faith Baptist Temple have been called to start a new church in Pennsylvania; Pastor Ron Seal, who has been pastor of Rose City Baptist Church since July, is now pastor of the joint congregations. Karen Wheaton of Decatur, Alabama, sings in the evening at First Assembly of God Church; Wheaton has released nine albums and recorded two videos; she is a regular guest on the Trinity Broadcasting Network...

This story is updated. Area leaders were effusive in their praise Tuesday for Cape Girardeau native Sydney Pollack, a retired businessman and community leader, who died Saturday in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 93. "Sydney and I went to Cape Central High together and we'd been corresponding by mail a lot lately," said retired U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr...

Any building project has unforeseen challenges and Cape Girardeau’s new City Hall project overlooking the Mississippi River is no exception.

Tireless community service and a long-standing commitment to the future of Cape Girardeau earned veteran banker Narvol A. Randol Sr., the Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. Award; the award was presented by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce during its annual dinner-dance at the Show Me Center last night, with more than 800 people attending; also honored were Ken Bryan, who received the Go-Getter Award, presented for a member's outstanding work with the organization's membership committee; Hutson's Fine Furniture, which received the Small Business of the Year Award; and 11 chamber members of more than 50 years.. ...