HISTORIC PLACE RECOMMENDED; COMMISSION WANTS OLD LORIMIER CEMETERY TO GET DESIGNATION

"The culture, refinement, and, in fact, the civilization of a people can be measured by the respect paid its honored and distinguished dead." Louis Houck, 1896.

The Cape Girardeau Historic Preservation Commission, appointed in April 1990, Wednesday recommended its first local historic landmark designations be Old Lorimier Cemetery.

The commission unanimously approved a resolution that the 150-year-old cemetery on Fountain Street be designated as a local landmark.

The recommendation will go to the city's Planning and Zoning Commission Aug. 12, and, if approved, would be considered by the Cape Girardeau City Council at its Sept. 1 meeting.

Commissioner John Schneider said Wednesday the resolution will not only recognize the importance of the historic site, but will allow the city to insure that the cemetery maintains its significance.

Schneider said the resolution "has some teeth" to regulate the types of monuments that will be allowed in the cemetery.

In the resolution, the commission said Old Lorimier Cemetery has "significant character, interest, and value as part of the development, heritage and cultural characteristics of the city, state and nation; and is associated with the lives of persons significant in the past."

The cemetery also contains information of archaeological value that affects historic research, the resolution says.

If the council consents to the commission's resolution, an ordinance would be drafted that would, among other things, regulate "construction, alteration, demolition or excavation," in the cemetery and "replacement of monuments, stones or other markers of grave sites."

The cemetery, which dates to the mid-19th century, is one of the city's oldest landmarks.

Among those buried there are Louis Lorimier, the founder of Cape Girardeau; Louis Houck, an early prominent resident; George Lewis, reportedly a second cousin to President George Washington; Uriah Brock, a Revolutionary War soldier; George Greene, a Common Pleas Court judge regarded as the founder of the Cape Girardeau public schools; and Alexander Buckner, Missouri's third U.S. senator and a national leader in the Masonic Lodge.

City officials have said that more than 5,000 bodies likely are buried in the cemetery, many of them in unmarked graves.

The site has repeatedly been struck by vandals over the years. Last year more than 80 stones were damaged in several incidents, which prompted a grassroots effort to raise funds to erect a fence around the cemetery.

Prior to Wednesday's meeting, Schneider said the money for the fence is available and that the fence should be built soon.

In other business Wednesday, City Planner Kent Bratton told the commission he will prepare resolutions for the commission in August to designate two more sites as local landmarks.

One of the sites, a home at 151 S. Spanish commonly referred to as the "Hoche Home," was first built in the late 1850s. It's now owned by Brock and Kathleen Whittenberger.

At least four additions have been built onto the home, but commissioners have said the historic designation for the property is appropriate.

Commissioner John Boardman, who formerly lived in the home, has in the past said that although the building has been altered, it remains a "very unique, original" structure that has historical and architectural significance for Cape Girardeau.

The other designation would be for a home at 406 N. Louisiana that was built in 1939 using materials from a building constructed on the same site in the 19th century.

Commissioners have said that although the structure itself has little historical significance, its builder a renowned local architect gives the home "cultural importance."