CONNECTING WITH THE PAST

tle of Cape Girardeau

Plaque to be left at current location

Confederate troops attacked retreating Union forces under General John Marmaduke on April 26, 1863 but were repulsed after a 30 minute engagement.

The homestead just south of the marker, known as the Haas House, was a temporary command post for the federal troops. The old building bore the scars of rifle and cannon fire. It has been torn down.

Capaha Park

Moved to Broadway St.

This area was once the home of the Capaha tribe of Native Americans, mortal enemies of their cousins, the Casquins, to the south. An expedition under Hernando DeSoto entered the area with the Casquins as their allies, but upon noting their extreme cruelty, decided to switch allegiance to the Capahas.

Fort B

Plaque to be left at current location

During the Civil War, the federals chose Cape Girardeau for a military fortification for the same reasons that Lorimier chose it seven decades before - it is the first defensible position upriver from the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Fort B was to prevent a rebel invasion up the Mississippi.

Missouri Flag birthplace

Destination unknown because

original site now private property

The suggestion that Missouri have a state flag was made by Marie Watkins Oliver, who resided in this house off Sprigg Street.

A Cape Girardean, Mary Kochtitzky, also painted the first Missouri flag.

Old Lorimier Cemetery

Missing

Old Lorimier Cemetery is the oldest man-made landmark standing in Cape Girardeau. Lorimier designated the site as a burial ground for resident families, without cost. The body of his own wife, Charlotte Pemanpieh Lorimier, a Shawnee Indian, was entombed here in 1808. Lorimier was laid to rest here four years later.

The Ellis-Wathen House

Missing

Alfred P. Ellis, one of Cape's earliest merchants, had a house on North Main built for his only daughter, Maria, who married Ignatius Wathen in 1841. Construction of this house began in 1839 and took two years to complete. The house has been torn down.

First telephone exchange

Plaque to be left at current location

About a year after Brazilian Emperor Don Pedro called the world's attention to Alexander Graham Bell's invention, the first telephone line in Missouri went into service between Cape Girardeau and Jackson in December 1877.

The Mississippi River

Plaque to be left at current location

"The Father of Waters" has provided a means of travel and commerce since the days Indians, explorers, and missionaries plied its current in canoes, dugouts, flatboats, keelboats, and packets.

The Red House

Plaque to be left at current location

When Louis Lorimier was named commandant of this district by the Spanish government in 1793, he chose Cape Girardeau as his headquarters. The Red House, as it came to be called, was Lorimier's home. This building off William was used to receive officials, soldiers, traders, priests, and Indians.

Indian Park

Missing

This area at Lorimier and William streets was the last plot of land Louis Lorimier donated to the city. From the time of the original settlement of Cape Girardeau to Lorimier's death in 1812, the site was used as a gathering area by all the Indian tribes that came to consult with their friend Lorimier, the Great White Chief.

St. Vincent's College

Plaque to be left at current location

Constructing a college located on the Mississippi water highway was the idea of a local parish established by priests of the Congregation of the Mission. Father John Timon of this parish, which was using Lorimier's former residence as a public chapel, approved the final plan for the college project sometime after 1836.

Completed in 1843, St. Vincent's was one of the oldest colleges west of the Mississippi. Its final class graduated in 1979.

Fort D

Plaque to be left at current

location on Giboney St.

Fort D is the only one of the four forts erected in Cape Girardeau by Union forces in 1861 still standing. Fort D was built on this site off Giboney Street, southeast of town, because it commanded the entire bend of the river southwards and also the river road.

Fort C

Will be installed on apartment complex to be constructed on site

This fort once here off Good Hope was a many-sided structure with a moat surrounding the earthworks.

During the Battle of Cape Girardeau, fought to the northwest of this site on April 26, 1863, soldiers from Fort C joined with those from the three other local forts to repulse the Confederate attack.

The first public school

Now at the site of City Hall

On July 19, 1830, a Board of Trustees composed of G. Henderson, Ezra Dutch, Abner and Alfred Dansant, Alfred Ellis, and Levi Lightner paid $40 for a plot of land for a school. The site, off Independence, went undeveloped for 41 years before a school was built in 1871. It was razed in 1935.

Courthouse and Park

Plaque to be left at current location

In 1805, Don Louis Lorimier promised four acres of land "anywhere between Thorn's Creek and Shawnee Path" and $200 and 30 days labor for the establishment of a local seat of justice.

In 1806, Missouri Governor William Harrison designated Cape Girardeau as the Government Seat for the District, and the contract for a courthouse and jail was awarded to Ezekial Able in 1811. Able completed the jail, but having expended his entire budget, was not allowed to build the courthouse. Because of this, and because of land title uncertainty at the time, the county seat was moved to Jackson in 1815, where it remains today.

Old Opera House

Plaque to be left at current location

In 1806, Capt. William Ogle built Cape Girardeau's first tavern on this site. Ogle was killed by Joseph McFerron in Missouri's first recorded duel, in 1807. Charles Ellis operated a two-story log hotel on the site until his death in 1831.

SOURCES: Rotary Club Marker Project map; staff historian Sharon Sanders.

By Christopher Howard

For Edward Kaiser, finding and restoring the historical plaques of Cape Girardeau is the least one old soldier could do for another.

Finding the Fort D bronze historical plaque on Elm Street one of at least 16 such markers that Cape Girardeau Rotarians and local philanthropists began to commission in the 1950s made Kaiser, a World War II veteran, recognize his connection with the men of another war.

"The Union soldiers dug their trenches, and they were looking out on the river," Kaiser said. "They took logs and painted them black to look like cannons and scare off the Confederate gunships. That was really smart.

"That's the main thing that tripped my trigger."

Kaiser, 76, served in a U.S. Army 105 millimeter cannon company in Europe in World War II. He fought in several battles that were destined to become chapter headings in history textbooks, including the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. He received the Bronze Star.

In 1998, the Cape Girardeau Rotary Club asked Kaiser to locate the plaques.

"They said, Would you go and find them?' and that's what I've been doing," Kaiser grinned. "I guess it's because nobody else would do it."

The bronze of the Cape Girardeau plaques has gone gray-blue and black. Aside from prominent displays such as those at the Mississippi River and at Louis Lorimier's Red House, the markers have been forgotten, and, in the case of the one at Indian Park, stolen.

Sometimes, what a missing plaque requires is a bit of searching. For example, Kaiser said, he discovered the plaque commemorating Fort C overgrown by weeds at the old St. Francis Hospital. As the decades passed and the new hospital was constructed, the plaque had been forgotten.

The headquarters of Kaiser's two-year hunt has been the dining room table of his apartment on the fourth floor of a local assisted-living complex. With a treetop view off the balcony behind and a blood-red Betta fish circling slowly in a vase on the table, Kaiser has researched his hunt with old Rotary Club documents and city tourist brochures.

"People don't know they're here," Kaiser said. "Even the city doesn't know about all this. The city planner is going to try to help me locate the others."

City Planner Kent Bratton said he has been trying to locate the markers for years.

"I just found out Ed is in charge of those things," said Bratton. "This is a work in progress at this point. ... I don't think the general public is aware of where they all are."

Of the 16 markers that Kaiser knows were erected, three are missing the stolen Indian Park marker, the Ellis-Wathen-Ranney House marker, and the plaque denoting the Old Lorimier Cemetery off Park Drive North.

Kaiser is retired from a career as a construction machinery salesman. He said once all the markers are found or replaced, he and the Rotary Club plan to have the existing plaques refurbished.