CITY STILL UNDECIDED AFTER TWO YEARS ON `GIFT' FROM MUSEUM

A collector's offer more than two years ago to donate to the city of Cape Girardeau a museum collection valued at $1.5 million to $4 million still stands despite the city's inability to meet conditions of the transaction.

A. La Vielle Lawbaugh, a Southeast Missouri native who now lives in San Luis Rey, Calif., has offered his personal collections to Cape Girardeau in exchange for a new 10,000-square-foot museum to house the artifacts.

Lawbaugh also requires that the city hire him and his wife as the museum's curators. Local officials have said the city doesn't have adequate resources to establish and operate the museum.

"It is good stuff," said Robert Hendrix, president of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce. "The problem is we would have to build a building to put it in, and he wanted to be a curator for it, and we just don't have the money at this point to do it.

"We're kind of at a point where we can't do much with it. We're hoping we can work something out in the future."

Apparently Lawbaugh is willing to continue negotiating with the city. He made his initial offer in May 1989 and as recently as Monday sent a letter asking if "people of Cape are aware of the value to the city and the area of having a museum like no other in the world."

Robert White, a local historian who teaches history and historic preservation at Southeast Missouri State University, said Lawbaugh's collections include everything from antique coins to original paintings and prints.

White and Lyn Muzzy, director of the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau, visited Lawbaugh in September 1989 to view the collections.

One of the more fascinating collections, White said, is 30 to 40 museum-quality, sea and river miniature ships and boats.

"If you've seen the model of the Cape Girardeau (riverboat) at the River Heritage Museum, his are on that order," White said. "They're very nice. Some of those probably are worth several thousand dollars each.

"The material within the collection will cause one's mouth to fall open."

Lawbaugh said in the letter that, should the city establish the museum, he would expand the boat and ship collection to about 130 models, which would trace the evolution of seafaring vessels.

White said Lawbaugh also has collected native American artifacts, coins, antique firearms and some sets of duelling pistols and commemorative firearms.

"We're interested in the materials," said Hendrix. "It's nice stuff.

"There's such a diversity of things that it would not be a theme museum. It's really a museum of this man's collections. He's collected this stuff over the years and wants a place to establish a museum."

White said that he reported to the chamber that the collection probably is valued at $1.5 million to $2 million.

"There are so many different (themes) in the collection, that it's impossible to accurately assess everything," he added. "It's quite a collection.

"I indicated in my report that it was a collection that was very valuable, and that such an opportunity probably would not come Cape Girardeau's way again."

But White said he also recommended that the city resist immediately accepting the offer based on Lawbaugh's conditions.

He said Lawbaugh wouldn't accept anything less than a new "million-dollar" building to house the museum.

"The city doesn't have that kind of money to be throwing around," White said. "It would be something nice to have, but gee, that's a lot of money."

Hendrix said the city also would have to bear the cost of transporting the materials from California.

Lawbaugh couldn't be contacted for comment on the collection, but he wrote in the recent letter that the collection is valued in excess of $4 million.

He said that although Muzzy and White "both were amazed and enthusiastic about Cape getting the collections," repeated correspondence with city officials has resulted in little progress in establishment of the museum.

Lawbaugh claimed the collections would have a "real impact on the viewer.

"All the collections are based upon history; a pleasant walk through time and a real expansion of knowledge through eye contact," he wrote.