August 10, 2009

Public Transit Over the Years

Cape Transit Company took its buses off Cape Girardeau streets in the mid-1960s because of a lack of passengers, the same reason street cars stopped running earlier in the century. Bus service began in 1941 and the small number of faithful riders was upset by the close of service on May 31, 1969. One of the last riders was bitter. "I pay taxes which support an airport, which I don't use; a park, which I don't use; a swimming pool, which I don't use; but for something that I and others like me use, a bus, they do away with. Yes, it's an All-American City awright."

From 1893 through 1934, trolley cars provided transportation through Cape Girardeau. A passenger prepares to baord an electric street car at the corner of Broadway and Main streets in downtown Cape Girardeau.

Before the electric street car system began in Cape Girardeau in 1905, the muley cars of the Cape Girardeau Ferry Co. traveled the "big square" around Cape Girardeau: Broadway to Sprigg to Good Hope to Spanish and back. The car barn was located on Good Hope Street, and a "fleet" of 28 mules was stabled there. (River Heritage Museum)

Three street car conductors posed for this picture alongside a trolley car sometime before 1915. Only Walter Poe, right, has been identified. (Wanda Poe Fitzpatrick)

A Cape Girardeau County Transit Authority Bus turns left onto Broadway Avenue from Spanish Street Aug. 7, 2009.

Tokens used on the Interurban Railway.

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