Heritage Days will include WWII boat, bomber

Cape Girardeau will be bursting with history later this month. The inaugural Cape Girardeau Heritage Days will take place from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2.

The festival, which celebrates many eras of Cape Girardeau’s history, will coincide with the docking of the LST Memorial 325, a participant in the D-Day invasion at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, as well as the B-17 Flying Fortress Sentimental Journey, a World War II bomber, making an appearance at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

“It’s a huge community effort,” Stacy Dohogne Lane, director of public relations for the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau, said of Heritage Days. “Everybody’s really focusing on a different part of history that they have a special interest or level of expertise in.”

The weekend event will feature exhibits, demonstrations and special events not regularly seen at the various historical associations. Cape River Heritage Museum, Crisp Museum, Fort D Historic Site, Glenn House, Heritage Hall, Old St. Vincent’s Church, the Red House Interpretive Center, Old Lorimier Cemetery and Fairmont Cemetery all will host events beginning Friday, Sept. 30, with a concert featuring music throughout the years.

“It’s going to be narrated by Mark Twain himself,” Lane said, referring to an impersonator of the author.

The B-17 Sentimental Journey takes off near Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona, in 2009.Grant Brummett

Other functions include talks given by engineers from the LST Memorial 325, cemetery tours, Victorian tea service and other performances and presentations.

The weekend of history closes Sunday afternoon, Oct. 2, with a living history event at Fairmont Cemetery, with full military honors for two U.S. Colored Troops and an unveiling of new headstones for the previously unmarked graves.

“The whole thing was organized so anybody could look at the schedule and hopefully find something that would entertain them during the day and perhaps try something else they hadn’t seen,” said Paul Nenninger, a board member at the Red House Interpretive Center.

Although the LST Memorial 325 is participating in Cape Girardeau Heritage Days, it’s not affiliated with the event; its appearance in Cape Girardeau during the festival is coincidental.

The LST Memorial 325 will be available for tours at Cape Girardeau’s riverfront from Sept. 29 to Oct. 3. World War II veterans will receive preferential treatment; they will be sent to the front of the line and tour the ship for free.

According to the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau, local events surrounding the docking are in the works and will include an airplane display at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

The Sentimental Journey will make an appearance at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport from Sept. 27 to Oct. 2. The bomber is one of 10 airworthy B-17s remaining of over 17,000 manufactured for combat during World War II.

The public can book a Living History Flight from Sept. 30 through Oct. 2 for a $425 to $850 fare, or take a “climb aboard” tour from 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sept. 27 through Oct. 2 with a suggested $5 donation.

The Cape Girardeau Heritage Days festival represents a wide history ranging from colonial days to World War II. Nenninger said organizers of the event would like to see it become an annual affair “with expansions to cover even more of the heritage and history of Cape.”

“It’s going to be a historic weekend in [downtown Cape Girardeau],” Lane said. “So if you’re interested in history, it’s going to be the place to be.”

A full schedule of Heritage Days events can be found at visitcape.com/heritagedays.

More information on the World War II air and sea crafts may be found at visitcape.com/LST.

bbrown@semissourian.com

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