PADDLEWHEELER, OUTDOOR MARKET ATTRACT CROWD

The riverfront was the place to be in Cape Girardeau Sunday.

Hundreds of people strolled the downtown area, attracted by the American Queen paddlewheeler and a special "Tailgate" antique/collectible market.

"The collectible show was great," said Evelyn Boardman, a member of the Downtown Merchants Association, which sponsored the event. Twenty-five people displayed their wares, selling from tables, pickup trucks, vans and car trunks on the parking lot at Water and Broadway.

"This is our first time at a market like this," said Sue Ramsey, owner with her husband Bob of Treasures of the Earth Rock Shop, 629 Broadway. "We had a few buyers and a lot of lookers. The exposure for our business was great."

The Ramseys have operated their business for three years, two of them at the Broadway location.

Mary Thompson of Fruitland is familiar with shows and markets. Thompson, who operates an antiques and collectible shop in her husband's harness and buggy shop at Fruitland, was first to arrive for the Sunday show, at just after 6 a.m. Gerald Thompson operates Butch's Harness & Buggy shop, featuring new and used buggies and harness. He also restores all types of buggies and harness.

"We had a lot of buyers and a lot of lookers," said Mrs. Thompson. "A lot of people went through the show."

Several hundred people attended the market and viewed the riverboat. There were as many as 200 people milling around the market at any one time most of the morning, said Boardman.

"This is an idea which could be expanded on," Boardmen said.

A number of items were available for buyers -- books, dolls, furniture, glass, old pictures, art and more.

The tailgate show had a built-in audience with the American Queen docked along the Mississippi River between the two river flood gates.

The Queen was carrying more than 400 travelers and a crew of 192.

The appearance of the Queen and its traditional calliope concert attracted a large gathering to view the $65 million, 436-passenger paddle wheeler which was placed in operation in 1995.

The Queen herself is a showplace for antiques.

The gracious days of the 1800s are re-created throughout the boat. The Ladies' Parlor (according to long-standing steamboat tradition, tobacco-chewing and swearing here were banned) features a number of antiques, including an 1890s maple and walnut mantle, an 1895 Edison Home Phonograph and a wide selection of reading materials for the "gentlewoman" of the day.

Across from the Ladies Parlor is the Gentlemen's Card Room, done in a deep, rich decor that sets off the bookcases filled with volumes which might have been found in an upper-class, turn-of-the-century home. A stuffed black bear guards the room's side windows, and an old-fashioned arcade machine promising "French postcard" views of ladies for just a penny.

A team spent two years going to auctions all over the Midwest acquiring antiques for the Queen, said a spokesman of the Delta Queen Steamboat Co., which owns the American Queen and its sister ships, Delta Queen and Mississippi Queen.