City wins $127K grant to preserve Ivers Square; effort garnered more than 50,000 votes

Cape Girardeau won a $127,650 grant for preservation and upgrades to Ivers Square on Thursday after a voting campaign.

“This is the biggest grant we’ve ever gotten,” Old Town Cape resource-development specialist Parker Butler said. “Having a grant you don’t have to match yourself, that you can use for a brick-and-mortar project like this, it’s pretty unheard of.”

The Partners in Preservation grant, awarded through the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express in partnership with Main Street America, was one of 11 awarded to communities around the U.S.

Twenty-five cities participated in the competition this year.

The winners were selected by popular vote, and Cape Girardeau garnered nearly 53,000 of the more than 900,000 cast, according to a news release.

The funds, Butler said, will be used for a variety of upgrades around the park, which the city renamed in June to pay tribute to James Ivers, a former slave who joined the Union Army to serve in the Civil War.

The roof of the gazebo will be replaced, Butler said.

“We would like it to resemble what it looked like when it was built [in 1931],” he said.

Upgrades to electrical infrastructure and lighting will follow, he said.

“This is an upgrade we can make that will give us more options,” he said, referring to the types of public events held at the gazebo, such as the Tunes at Twilight concert series.

“We also want to make some aesthetic improvements, as well,” he said.

Those improvements include maintenance to the fountain, and the addition of benches, landscaping and trashcans to give the park a more accessible feel.

The money also will be used to erect signage identifying the park as “Ivers Square” and explaining the life of the park’s new namesake.

“The preservation of history is a very, very important part of what we do here at Old Town Cape,” Butler said, adding Ivers’ life story embodied the dearest-held of American ideals.

“That’s part of the reason the city chose that name,” he said.

Old Town Cape found out the project was being considered for the contest in July, Butler said.

“At first, it was definitely intimidating seeing (other contestant) names like West Hollywood and Washington, D.C.,” he said. “But we knew we could engage our people better than they could engage theirs. And we’ve really just been blown away. We weren’t necessarily surprised, since we knew our community could do this, but it’s still incredible.”

Mayor Harry Rediger expressed his congratulations to Old Town Cape through email Thursday, praising its commitment to the project.

“Things get done together,” Rediger wrote.

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573)388-3627

Pertinent address:

Ivers Square, Cape Girardeau, Mo.