SANTA'S SUPER SERVICE STATION

An Edna Daume painting of downtown Cape Girardeau was placed in the Hutson Furniture Company's display this year. Daume painted the downtown area circa 1954.

Life at the intersection of Merriwether and Main streets circa 1958 will be re-visited during the holiday season at Hutson Furniture Co., 43 S. Main.

Every year the Hutson family decorates its storefront window with a nostalgic look at holiday life in Cape Girardeau.

"This is the 34th or 35th year we've been doing this," Charlie Hutson said. "We've been doing it so long because we like it."

Hutson likes seeing people crowd outside the furniture store looking at the display. He said cars also will crowd Main Street because sightseers stop to look at the decorations.

This year's display will be unveiled this morning and will operate from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. every day until New Year's Day.

Folks might recognize it: Shorty's Super Service Station.

The service station operated at 45 S. Main in Cape Girardeau between 1940 and 1964 at the intersection of Merriwether and Main. It was a Mobil-affiliated station.

In keeping with the holiday spirit, the Hutsons have modified the service station's name to Santa's Super Service Station.

Instead of Shorty Geiser and his family working the pumps and checking the fluids under the hoods of cars, elves will be doing all of the work.

"We're going to have movement out of this world," Hutson said of the display.

Besides the elves servicing the elf customers at the pumps -- the elves are "driving" restored, antique pedal cars -- they also will be working on Santa's sleigh. The sleigh is in a garage for repairs on a hydraulic lift.

Santa's Super Service Station is set in a winter wonderland. The backdrop to the station has been painted to depict downtown Cape Girardeau in the late '50s or early '60s.

"There's the old Woolworth and J.C. Penney," Hutson pointed out on the backdrop. "We also have our old building and the train station."

The backdrop was painted by local artist Richard Stout. The Hutson family and Stout have worked on this year's display for a couple of months.

The Hutsons used pictures from the era to design the service station and paint their backdrop.

"We've spent about seven months, minimum, planning this," Hutson said.

In addition to the backdrop being painted, the Hutsons built Santa's Super Service Station from plywood and lights. They also built the gas pumps featured in the display. The family built all of the structures from scratch.

The antique pedal cars and plane were leased from a company that restores old toys. Cars are sitting at the pumps and pulling into the service station. There also is a pedal plane suspended from the ceiling with a motor-powered prop.

At each end of the window display the Hutsons plan to post a picture and a brief history of Shorty's Super Mobil Service Station and the owner, Shorty Geiser.

The Hutsons also have decorated their store window at Furniture Fair, up the street from Hutson Furniture Co., 1 N. Main. They have decorated that store's windows for several years too, but not quite as long as at Hutson Furniture's window.

Hutson didn't want to talk about the expense of the displays.

"That doesn't matter. We wouldn't do this every year unless we enjoyed it," he said.