CITY BUYS CAPAHA PARK AMID BITTER CONTROVERSY

The city received its $40,000 for bonds to buy what is now Capaha Park on Feb. 4, 1916. The money was to buy the land where the city's fair was held and to continue the city's fair.

The purchase ended a bitter struggle over the land with the Cape Fair and Park Association.

That battle included a court case, an appeal of a judge's ruling and a heated bond election.

It answered whether the city favored owning land for parks and planned to maintain parks.

And it meant the 40-acre tract Col. Robert Sturdivant sold to the fair association to be used specifically for a fair would continue to be used for a fair.

The story starts in 1900 when the land, valued at $8,000, was sold to the fair association for $2,000. The land along Broadway -- now Capaha Park -- was to replace the defunct fair site along the Gordonville Road.

It was said Sturdivant never collected the $2,000.

Some 14 years later, the fair board ran into financial trouble with some members gaining most of the association's stock.

Then on March 19, 1914, the Cape Girardeau Fair and Park Board voted to discontinue the annual fair "to hasten sale of site" to the city for $35,000 for the park.

Those voting to continue the fair were J.T. Nunn, D.A. Glenn and William Schade, and voting against it were Harry Machen, Clyde Vandivort, Julius Meyer, Charles Blattner, Herman Siemers and John L. Miller.

From that vote and from activities during that year, a controversy arose over whether the city should buy the Capaha Park fairgrounds from the fair board.

Plagued by debt, the fair association decided to dispose of the property, and it made clear if the city didn't buy the land, the fair board would sell the land to individuals and divide it into city lots.

Furthermore, it would end the city fair.

Three or four stockholders of the fair association had brought legal action asking if the fair land could be sold for private development.

In Common Pleas Court, Judge Robert S. Ranney ruled the land could not be sold as private property because it was public property and could only be used for public purposes.

The fair board members had brought a second suit, but then after a lot of testimony they had the suit dismissed.

The plan for the city to buy the fairgrounds was to seek a $40,000 bond issue, with $10,000 of that to go toward improvements to the park.

The arguments against the bond issue were that the land already was public land, that the city wouldn't take proper care of the land, that the city was already in debt and that the city couldn't derive a profit from the new park.

In an editorial the day before the 1915 election, The Daily Republican said the three fair stock holders were using bulldozing tactics and that they wanted $3 for each $1 they had invested.

It said the threat came when the three stock holders said if they didn't get their price they would kill the one institution that everyone wanted to see kept alive -- the fair.

The editorial continued that had the city wanted the money to develop a park system, most people would be for the bond issue.

The bond-issue vote on Nov. 16, 1915, passed 485 to 189 in a light vote for the city of about 9,000 people. Only 674 people voted.

That light turnout led The Republican to say: "Never before has a matter of so much importance to the city received so slight a vote."

The bond issue was finally paid off on Jan. 3, 1936.