HISTORIC HOMES ON DISPLAY FOR TOUR

Sunday's Cape Girardeau Historical Society historic-homes tour wasn't attended as well as last year's, but you could blame that on the rain.

The tour brought about 225 visitors to 10 area homes, including the Glenn House on Spanish Street and Earl and Ruth Norman's log cabin, which was making its first appearance in the annual event.

Lynette Shirrell, chairperson for the home tour, said the $2,250 the tour brought in will be divided evenly between the historical society and the River Heritage Museum. The historical society's part will go to maintaining the Glenn House.

"That costs thousands and thousands of dollars," Shirrell said. "Just the regular upkeep of a house is costly, let alone an old house."

Shirrell said she was hoping this year's tour would equal last year's banner year of more than 300 visitors. But, she said, last year's weather was superb and last year they advertised more.

"The rain probably kept a lot of people away this time," she said. "And we didn't dive real hard into the advertising this year."

Shirrell said the tour was a success and culminates a process of hard work for the 35 volunteers who worked on the event.

Each of the homes that are on the tour, and they change every year, is displayed by the homeowners, Shirrell said.

"They do 99 percent of the work, and it's a lot of work to put your home on display," she said.

Ruth Norman discovered for the first time what it is like to have more than 200 visitors to her home on a given afternoon. For the first time the Normans' log cabin, which was built between 1798 and 1810, was open for the tour. Norman greeted each visitor at the door and bid each a farewell before they toured the home. She likened it to hosting a big party.

"I guess that would be a good way to put it," she said.

Even though the paperwork is sparse and incomplete, Norman said she has been able to trace the cabin's land transaction back to a Spanish land grant to Jonathan Ditch in 1798. The cabin, which is constructed of enormous hand-hewn logs, was dismantled and moved more than a mile to its present site early in its history. Norman said they have discovered an early form of insulation within the walls of the cabin, horse hairs.

Tour regulars Leta Bahn and Melva Rose Lewis, both of Cape Girardeau, said it was a pleasure to view the Normans' cabin.

"We were particularly interested in this house because of the age," said Bahn, who owns a historic 1856 home of her own.

"We're being very selective," Lewis said. "We're only going to half the houses. Different tours emphasize different things. I think this group always has historic homes. The different tours have different appeals."

Shirrell said it is difficult to find people who are willing to donate the time and effort it takes to put their homes on display. She said the historical society has a number of sites available to it because of the history of the area. She said she'll work to get a different set of homes for next year, but she can't start asking soon enough.

"There are some I'd like to get for the future," she said. "But I want to talk to them first before I say who."