Cape, Jackson through fatherly eyes

If Louis Lorimier could come back now, imagine his surprise.

Imagine as Lorimier suddenly appears on horseback at the corner of Lorimier and William streets and opens his eyes. His mouth flies open, his eyes dart back and forth. In one instant, he can count at least a million things that are on Earth now that were not on Earth then.

He's mesmerized by the vehicles, the sounds, the lights, the bridge, the movement, the energy and the black people walking freely in the neighborhoods. Nothing is as he left it in 1812. The town doesn't even smell the same. The dirt lanes are now hard and gray, painted with white and yellow stripes. He keeps going, not blinking for fear of missing something.

Lorimier, his hair braided as long as a horse whip, passes several residential blocks. Just from what he's already seen, he knows the town is more than twice as big as it was in the early 1800s. He finds a place called the Town Plaza. He stops at Sears. He recognizes the clothes for what they are, but he is stunned by the quantity. A flickering light catches his eye. He sees several big rectangular boxes that flash moving pictures of people.

He stands for a while, wondering how mankind, how the city, has come so far. Part of him wants to stay and gaze at this thing called HDTV, but there is so much more to see, to discover. He moves on. West.

He quickly comes to a road called Kingshighway. The intersection is huge. He can hardly keep his concentration as these horseless carriages, some of them with 18 wheels, pass in front of him.

He looks down and to his right sees water flowing in what looks like a small man-made river. The river bottom and banks are perfectly square. He remembers a creek being here at one point. He never dreamed the city would reach this far.

The north-south traffic stops and the light over the intersection turns green. He rides up a hill and sees a huge building called Saint Francis Medical Center. He guides his horse into the parking lot and overhears a couple of people debating which hospital is better, Saint Francis or Southeast.

There are TWO?

He continues down the path. He sees places named Applebee's, Ruby Tuesday's, Logan's. He pokes his head into the first few and finds out these buildings are restaurants. He can't believe the number of eating establishments along this strip.

He stops in at a place called Wal-Mart, amazed at the number of horseless carriages parked here. He ties his horse outside and steps back when the doors in front of him open automatically. He steps in, smiles at the greeter. Over the hum of activity he hears a constant beeping noise as blue-vested clerks rub packages over glass plates.

Lorimier looks at the packages. Did that say meat? In a can? The clerk dumps the packages in translucent blue bags, and Lorimier asks a blue-vested employee what the bags are made of.

Plastic, she says. He doesn't know what plastic is.

The former soldier and trader looks around, amazed at the food here. There is more milk and eggs and bacon and steaks, more supplies in this one store than he could have ever imagined possible. He wonders where it all came from.

Lorimier realizes he will never understand the technology, the advances that control everything from traffic to food to entertainment. But he wants to know more about the city. His city.

He wonders how Cape Girardeau got so big. He heads out of the place called Wal-Mart and continues west. He wants to see just how far his city has grown.

About 10 miles away, a man named Bartholomew Cousin finds himself sitting on the west side of a creek bank, next to his horse. He squints against the winter sun, looks up to his left and sees two towers rising over a hard, gray road. Like Lorimier, he is immediately stunned by the images.

He quickly deduces that these tower contraptions, both of which have cables running through them and appear to be mobile, are being used to build a bridge. No one seems to be operating these towers today. Perhaps it is too cold. But it appears as if this road is being widened. Nothing in the area looks familiar until he sees a white sign on the roadside.

Hubble Creek.

Could it be? Could this be the same Hubble Creek on which he designed the first roads in Jackson?

He didn't know what to expect when he arrived here, but this wasn't it.

He stands in awe for a few moments, watching these puttering and whirring transportation units whiz by one after another. He wonders if they run on steam and why everyone is in such a hurry.

He rides his horse on the shoulder of the road and finds out that this road is called Highway 34/72. He also finds a large sign at the intersection of Main Street.

Welcome to Jackson, it says. City of beautiful homes, parks, schools and churches.

It appears this is one of the biggest entrances into town. He finds it hard to find a place to cross the road with all the traffic.

He decides to follow Main Street to see what he can find out about the history of the town he originally designed.

Lorimier trots back to town after finally reaching the city limits near Notre Dame High School. Before galloping back into the commercial heart of the city, he stops once more to take in the sights of the west side. The view from the rural hilltop down to the busy commercial area below is stunning, almost a city all unto itself.

When he finds someone who knows more about Cape Girardeau, one of the first things he'll ask is about this section of town. It all looks so new.

He figures the best place to start his history lesson is with the city government. He stops to ask a pedestrian for directions. The pedestrian looks puzzled but tells the long-haired man on the horse how to reach city hall.

Lorimier picks up the pace and along the ride loses himself in the past. He remembers back to the early days of Cape Girardeau.

He remembers the Spanish government giving him a grant of land in 1793. He remembers the old trade post he set up along the Mississippi River. He remembers his good relationships with the Indians.

He remembers in 1806 asking his secretary, Bartholomew Cousin, to plot out a few parcels. Lorimier divided much of his land at Cape Girardeau into lots to be sold for $100 apiece. He chuckles. He remembers while at Wal-Mart seeing a woman pay $150 for food and supplies. He wonders what those parcels would be worth today.

He remembers trying to name the new town Lorimont. But an old Frenchman named Ensign Jean Baptiste Girardot had arrived earlier, in the 1730s. Although Girardot had left the place years ago, too many people had already come to know the area by his name and not Lorimier's.

Lorimier passes through the Kingshighway intersection again, back east on William Street.

Cousin rides north along Main Street in Jackson until he reaches a business strip.

It's a Tuesday afternoon and Cousin peeks into the place called Delmonico's. There is a banner out in the vestibule; it appears a group called Rotary International has just finished a meeting. An older gentleman walks toward the door, and Cousin introduces himself.

The man's name is Charles Sander.

The men sit down at a table and start talking about Jackson.

Cousin asks a few general questions and as Mr. Sander talks starts to visualize the city.

The year is 1926. Mr. Sander is 11 years old. The city limits begin at Main Street, where Cousin saw the sign earlier.

The Uptown district is lined with several businesses, including small one-room grocery stores, a bank, a courthouse. The district is a hub of activities. The churches and schools are here and uptown is a meeting place.

Over the next couple of decades the city develops and the population grows. Dirt roads turn into gravel roads, gravel roads turn into paved roads, and buggies are replaced by automobiles. The roads and transportation seem to pull Cape Girardeau closer together.

In 1934, Sander opens a hardware store. He keeps it open until 9 or 10 p.m. every night, and business is grand.

Just down the road, there's a movie theater that sells tickets for 15 cents and popcorn and soda for a nickel each.

Cape Girardeau and Jackson are still 10 miles apart.

Over the next 25 years, things begin to change in Jackson. More paved roads. More automobiles. Cape Girardeau is closer than ever now. Many of Jackson's merchants see their business go to Cape Girardeau. Sander begins to close shop at around 6 p.m.

Meanwhile, the competitive spirit between the two cities is as healthy as ever. Cape Girardeau sports fans, most likely students, paint tar Tiger paws on Jackson sidewalks. Jackson reciprocates. Fist fights ensue.

Cousin finds this picture a puzzling one. He doesn't understand what football is, nor the reference to tigers. He's quite sure the Southeast Missouri habitat does not support tigers. Nonetheless, he's curious about the pranks and the rivalry.

"Did you ever participate in any of that?" Cousin asks.

"You shouldn't ask me a question like that. I try not to lie. I was a good boy, a citizen of Jackson and I tried to behave."

With that, the men smile. Cousin, a million more things to see, thanks Mr. Sander for his time and heads east on Main.

Lorimier finally makes it to city hall, where he is introduced to a man named Kent Bratton, the city planner of Cape Girardeau. Lorimier tells Bratton he wants to know about Cape Girardeau's growth. Bratton doesn't know where to start.

The first bridge in 1928.

The annexation out to Arena Park in 1947.

The completion of Interstate 55 in the 1960s.

The downtown floodwall in 1964.

The trunk sewer line up Siemer's Drive that kicked off the development on the west side in the 1980s.

The water system purchase in 1992.

The Cape La Croix Creek stormwater system in the 1990s.

The new bridge in 2003.

The nearly annual sewer extensions to the northwest part of the city.

As Bratton runs off the list, Lorimier finds the progress to be more complicated than he thought it would be. He thought maybe there was gold found in the hills here. He thought maybe Cape Girardeau had established a huge river port. He later learned that an industrial port had been established just south of Cape Girardeau, but that was relatively new. No, planning played a big part in the city's growth. And, of course, the people. Bridges and highways and sewers don't get built, Lorimier believes, without tremendous planning and creative people.

Lorimier figures he's taken enough time and politely escorts himself out of Bratton's office. He walks out the back door and sees the huge metal beams which will frame the new federal courthouse.

He heads further into downtown.

Cousin figures his next stop should be the courthouse. He walks in and asks a clerk where he can find information about the city of Jackson. She tells him to try city hall across the street.

Eventually, he winds up in the mayor's office. The mayor's name, he finds out, is Paul Sander, Charles Sander's nephew.

They get to talking about Jackson's past, present and future.

The mayor talks about when he was a boy.

He spends a large amount of time in his father's uptown business. They frequent the soda fountains down the street, where he and other businessmen stop for an after-school break.

He and his family take routine trips to Cape Girardeau on Sundays for lunch. Families find everything they need in the county seat. Trips to Cape Girardeau are a special occasion.

Ten miles still separate Jackson from Cape Girardeau.

Over the years, the uptown climate changes. The grocery shops turn into supermarkets and move to bigger buildings on the outskirts. Discount stores like Wal-Mart also locate on the outer edge, and the city stretches closer to Cape Girardeau.

The school district, consolidated from several rural schools in 1954, develops a good reputation. Crime remains low and people decide they want to live here. Some of them move here and commute to jobs in Cape Girardeau. From 1970 to 1980, the town grows by 2,000 people.

Paul Sander grows up and is elected to city council in 1986.

From 1980 to 1990, the town sees a 33 percent increase in population, from 7,827 to 9,256.

The two cities bicker over annexation as the cities' limits grow closer and closer together. Seven years later, Sander is elected mayor, the same year Cape Girardeau experiences the worst Mississippi River flood in the city's history. A year later, in 1994, Al Spradling III is elected Cape Girardeau's mayor.

One day early on in Spradling's tenure, the two mayors meet over lunch. They talk about issues, and Sander becomes convinced there isn't one problem that can't be worked out.

In the coming months, the cities informally agree that the city limits will stop at I-55. The cities begin a new approach, a new cooperative tone.

By the year 2000, Jackson's population grows to 11,947. It's eight times bigger than it was in 1900, twice as big as it was in 1970.

Cousin thinks about all this growth, how it's hard to tell now where one city stops and the other begins.

"Do you think Jackson and Cape will become one city some day?" Cousin asks.

"That's not a thought, not an option," Sander says. "We are still very much separate entities. But we cooperate. We wield a much bigger stick when we're on the same side."

Cousin stretches his back, thanks Sander for his time and heads for the county archives.

The man with the long braided hair trots through town on his horse, remembering the days when Cousin plotted the first streets. He remembers the original layout. It all started with North, William, Middle and Water streets.

He comes across the street named in his honor and takes Lorimier north where he finds the Southeast Missourian newspaper. The paper on the rack says the publication is celebrating its 100th anniversary. He stops in to see what he can find out.

He's directed to the newspaper's library. The librarian hands him a copy of the "Images of the Past" in the "City of Roses" book and a copy of the Missourian's Centennial edition which ran in October of 2004.

He learns about how bad the floods used to be here, especially before the floodwall was built in 1964.

He reads about the impact the university has had on the town and how the teachers college grew into a university, about the construction of the new $100 million Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge.

He is astounded when he comes across the mention of an airport.

We can fly?

He reads for hours about the things that have spawned from his trading post. His eyes swell up with tears when he reads that nearly the entire regional Indian population traveled to Cape Girardeau to pay their respects when he died. He returns the books, thanks the librarian and heads for the river.

There he looks at the floodwall murals. He finds a painting of himself riding on a horse, a flattering, larger-than-life depiction. He then checks out the Red House which has been rebuilt to commemorate his trading post and his acquaintance with Meriwether Lewis. He is awestruck by the value the city has placed on its history.

He rides up the old Fountain Street to the place where he is buried. He is flattered by the grand monument that shields his tombstone from the rain and the sun.

He pays his respects to his two wives and climbs back on his horse. There is still more to see. He wants to see where Kingshighway takes him.

At the archive center, Cousin hits the jackpot. He finds a stack of black books as he walks in. They're titled "History of Jackson, Missouri and Surrounding Communities."

He grabs a book and sits down at one of the tables where others are looking up genealogy information.

He flips through the pages, reads how the railroad used to be vital for the two cities and how the Houck Railroad ran four times a day from Jackson to Cape Girardeau. In the 1870s and 1880s, the Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad provided a boost to business in the city.

The town was named after President Andrew Jackson. The town's original pioneer families had settled in the Carolinas and had admired Jackson's political and military reputation, even before he became president.

The courthouse on the square was built in 1908. The Jackson football team played in the state championship game in 1994 and 1995.

A couple hours later, Cousin finally pulls his nose out of the book and leaves. He hops on his horse. It's time to see Cape Girardeau.

He rides out on Hope Street and takes a left along East Jackson Boulevard. He sees exactly what the mayor was talking about. The city just keeps going. He sees a transportation fuel station. Whatever "gas" they're putting in their tanks costs $1.69 per gallon.

As he trots on, he reads where new Mexican and Chinese restaurants and a bakery are soon coming into town.

He rides past Wal-Mart and a building with a big golden M on a sign outside.

He keeps riding and reads where a new furniture store is coming soon.

He finally comes to Center Junction, to the all-important Interstate 55. He looks through the bridge to the other side. There is a man with a long braid riding a horse. Cousin recognizes him immediately.

He kicks his horse to a gallop. Lorimier does the same. They meet in the grassy median at Center Junction, the city limits for Cape Girardeau and Jackson. They hop off their horses and shake hands.

"Good to see you," Lorimier says. "Can you believe all this?"

"Incredible," Cousin responds as he looks around at the vehicles passing by.

"Not exactly how you drew it up."

"Couldn't have dreamed it."

"Well, at least we know how it turned out."

"I don't know," Cousin says. "I think it's just getting started."

bmiller@semissourian.com

243-6635