CITY BUYS CHURCH FOR POLICE HEADQUARTERS

On April 2, 1959, the Cape Girardeau City Council approved the purchase of Grace Methodist Church for use as police headquarters.

Church trustees finalized the deal April 16.

The city took over the church at Sprigg and Independence streets on Aug. 1. The building housed the police department until August 1976.

The church moved into a new building on Caruthers Street in July 1959.

Prior to moving into the church, the police department shared a building with the fire department at Independence and Frederick streets. The structure today houses the Cape River Heritage Museum.

The city acquired the church under a lease-purchase agreement for $45,000. The city paid the church $355 a month in rent, which included interest, until the purchase was completed.

The growing police force had been operating under increasingly cramped conditions at former headquarters.

The city also obtained a residence along Independence, which was razed for parking space, but not the church parsonage south of the property on Sprigg.

The purchase did not require a bond issue or a tax increase.

"I think that the City Council can save the taxpayers of Cape Girardeau a lot of money by buying this," Mayor Walter H. Ford said at the time. "It will relieve crowded conditions in the street department, fire department and at the courthouse. We have been saving our money and we can purchase the property without a bond issue."

The street and fire departments took over much of the space vacated by the police. The city engineering department also moved into the old building from the Common Pleas Courthouse.

The mayor and police commissioner John L. Wieser said the church was well suited for municipal purposes. The former church sanctuary was used to house the city court and also as a public auditorium.

Holding cells from the former police station were moved into the church basement.

The church served as police headquarters for 17 years until a modern facility was built half a block to the south and across the street at Sprigg and Merriwether streets.

The former church was demolished in February 1977, six months after the police department moved out.

The fire department's station No. 1 occupies the site today.