SIKESTON DEPOT RENOVATED TO BE A CULTURAL HUB

SIKESTON -- Renovation of a building that was once the community's link to the outside world and later nearly was torn down is nearing completion in downtown Sikeston.

When the Sikeston Depot reopens at the beginning of March, supporters hope it will reclaim its rightful place in the community.

The former railroad depot will become the new home of the Sikeston Arts Council. A grand opening is planned the weekend of March 3-5.

The building will house permanent museum exhibits such as Mississippian artifacts being donated by a private collector along with displays illuminating Sikeston's past, including the draining of the swamp and its agricultural heritage.

Erected outside the new Depot is a sculpture of a cotton plant carved during the city's Cotton Festival of the Arts by Cape Girardeau sculptor August W. Birk.

Another exhibition will celebrate Sikeston at the turn of the century, a golden era for the city, Janice Matthews says.

She represents the Historic Preservation Community on the Sikeston Cultural Development Corporation, which was formed to undertake the project. The other parties to the corporation include the Sikeston Arts Council, the Sikeston Chamber of Commerce, the Sikeston-Miner Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Sikeston Art League.

The Depot also will have galleries for exhibiting local and traveling shows, and one room will showcase vintage photos of the city and provide space for workshops.

A Smithsonian exhibition already has been booked for 2001.

The building is not the original railroad depot, which was moved a block away in 1916 and replaced by the current building. The depot closed in 1985 and the windows were boarded up. At one time demolition was a possibility.

The SCDC acquired the depot from Union Pacific Railroad with the help of the Cheney-Harris Trust, which is local money available for arts and cultural development.

About $200,000 has been spent on the project so far. The SCDC has applied for a special grant from the Missouri Arts Council to make more improvements and establish an endowment.

Matthews and other officials from the SCDC conducted a tour of the building Thursday for Flora Maria Garcia, executive director of the Missouri Arts Council. The MAC's executive committee already has approved the grant. The full board will decide at the end of February whether to OK the grant.

The state grant is made possible through an innovative program called the Missouri Cultural Trust. The trust receives 60 percent of a tax paid by out-of-state sports teams and entertainment figures.

If the grant is approved, the MAC will set aside 50 percent of the money raised locally to continue improvements at the Depot and to help establish the endowment fund. For every dollar a local group raises, the Missouri Cultural Trust sets aside 50 cents. The interest on that 50 cents will go to the arts group in perpetuity.

The Sikeston group hopes to raise a total of $350,000 over the next three years in support of the project. Michael Jensen, publisher of the Standard-Democrat newspaper in Sikeston, is the chairman of the fund-raising campaign.

Garcia, who also visited arts groups in Dexter and Poplar Bluff Thursday, said she is impressed with the work being done at the local level. "I have been amazed by what is happening in Missouri and with the quality, especially in the small communities," she said.

The depot renovation is part of a broader plan to refocus attention on the history in downtown Sikeston.

"This is a vision that has now hit the canvas," says Mark Grieshaber, a banker who is the SCDC president. "We hope this is the beginning of many more projects."