PAINTING COMPLETE ON MURAL

Work was completed this week on a Mississippi River floodwall mural in downtown Cape Girardeau.

"We had a goal to finish the mural in time for the annual Riverfest celebration," said Tim Blattner, a spokesman for the River Heritage Mural Association, which is heading the project. "The painters had some anxious moments throughout the past couple of weeks, working around the rain; but the mural is finished."

Riverfest is a two-day downtown celebration held each June. This year's Riverfest is Friday and Saturday.

The 320-foot-long, 14-foot-tall mural, which stretches between floodgates at Broadway and Themis, features a "Welcome to Cape Girardeau" segment of the sign, along with segments of several buildings, Indians, train, steamboats and other historic figures symbolic of Cape Girardeau.

The mural, which appears on the river side of the wall, was designed by artist Fred Lincoln of Memphis, formerly of Cape Girardeau.

Among the buildings included on the giant mural are Lorimier's Red House, Old St. Vincent's Church, Common Pleas Courthouse, a small (generic) Protestant church, Academic Hall, Southeast Missouri Hospital, St. Francis Medical Center, Central High School, and the Show Me Center on the Southeast Missouri State University campus.

The mural, a project of the River Heritage Mural Association, was painted in segments by two companies (Gary) West Sign Co., and (Richard) Stout Sign Co.

"The sign was painted in 16 segments," said Blattner.

Sharing in the cost of the project were the Downtown Merchants Association, Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau and the city of Cape Girardeau, Vision 2000, and the Riverfest Committee.

Blattner explained the costs of the project:

"This is a $16,000 project, but the mural itself cost only about $11,000," he said. "But anytime the mural association does a mural, we set aside 20 percent or more for cost of repairs and maintenance of the mural.

In this case, however, it was a requirement of the Corps of Engineers that we set aside an extra $2,000 for sandblasting the wall once the mural reached a stage where it couldn't be repaired," said Blattner.

He also explained that the mural group had originally planned to put the mural on the Water Street side of the wall.

"We ran into a lot of opposition on this because of the trees which were planted along the wall, so we switched it to the outside of the wall," said Blattner.

Blattner also discussed the event of high water.

"The river would have to reach a stage of 39 feet before the water would touch the design," he said, adding that the river had been above the 39-foot level on five occasions over the past 13 years.