Cape's historic sites targeted for preservation effort

Increasing preservation efforts at Old Lorimier Cemetery and Fort D and getting tax credits for restoration of historic sites were the topics addressed by three speakers at Wednesday night's meeting of the Cape Girardeau Historic Preservation Commission.

Dr. Frank Nickell, director of the Center for Regional History at Southeast Missouri State University, said Old Lorimier Cemetery was probably the most important historic site in all of Cape Girardeau.

As Cape Girardeau goes through its second large period of growth -- the first being from 1906 to 1931 -- the city needs to remember its historic places, Nickell said.

"Old Lorimier is the oldest and most documented place in the community," said Nickell. "Studying it helps us determine who we are."

Nickell said cemeteries, especially one as old as Lorimier, where the first documented burial occurred in 1808 but the ground was likely used by AmericanIndians for centuries before, can provide insight on many different aspects of the past.

Cemeteries shed light on ethnicity, settlement patterns, crises and epidemics, religious demographics and periods of greatness in the life of a community, Nickell said.

He advocated a financial endowment that would help restore the cemetery, which has been a major target of vandalism, and make improvements.

Scott House, a member of the preservation commission, gave a history of Fort D, a Civil War-era Union fortification that guarded land routes into the city. The fort was one of four built in and around Cape Girardeau during the war. It was an earthen fort and was armed with large cannons to repel invaders.

Plans are in place to install historical interpretations at the fort both in the post-war blockhouse at the center and along walkways inside the earthworks, said House.

He said such displays have been lacking, so visitors can't truly understand the fort's purpose.

Bill Whitlow, who managed the Marquette Towers rehabilitation for Prost Builders, talked about how important tax credits were to the Marquette project and gave those at the meeting a brief overview of how to get the credits. Tax credits, both state and federal, can help recoup almost 50 percent of a project's cost, he said.

Whitlow said the Marquette project may not have been possible without tax credits.

msanders@semissourian.com

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