Sikeston's milestone used to teach youth history

SIKESTON --Sikeston's 150th birthday, which is being celebrated throughout the year, is providing an opportunity to teach even the youngest Sikestonians about their city's history.

Beginning later this month, Sikeston Public Library will host a series of family nights for children in kindergarten through second grade and their parents centered around the year-long sesquicentennial.

"We will all learn from it," said children's librarian Ann Thompson about the program.

Thompson said she plans to take Sikeston history and incorporate it with a book or two along with hands-on activities during a series of four monthly meetings.

"We're going to talk about Sikeston, and the fact it was once (at the edge of) a swamp," Thompson said about the first event of the series. "It's hard to believe that 150 years ago we were in swamp and that it was uninhabited."

Parents will enjoy a short history of Sikeston in the late 1800s and early 1900s, she said.

Also at each meeting, Thompson will add to a pictorial banner complete with blurbs on the history of Sikeston.

For example, this month will begin the first portion which will represent Sikeston as a swamp area complete with a swamp scene and animals.

"We'll have as close as we can as to what it looked like and the growth of the Sikeston area -- from Benton and south. What it looked like then is relative to what Mingo (Wildlife Refuge in Puxico) looks like," Thompson said.

When the swamp was drained, it was the largest drainage project attempted at that time. The project took from 1909 to 1926 and cost $11 million.

"It turned some half a million acres of soupy, cypress forest into some of the state's most fertile agricultural land," Thompson said. "It was a major endeavor which is why it took so long to clear it."

Next children will learn about the Cairo and Fulton Railway Co. which Sikeston was included in around 1860, Thompson said.

"The trains played a big part in the Civil War, but in the early 1900s, Sikeston was also one of the main lines that carried grains, cotton and items produced from the richest farmland in the world," Thompson said.

A picture of the railroad will be added to the banner and children will be able to add pictures of the crops to the train.

"The train will go into the third banner and will have little facts and things about the Civil War, which will be our next topic. It goes into how Civil War soldiers fought over the Sikeston railroad," Thompson said.

The final topic for the series about Sikeston will be weather.

"We'll talk about the different things that happened in that time. For example, in 1937, Sikeston was flooded. In 1986, a tornado hit Sikeston and destroyed 100 homes, and of course the ice storm in 2009," Thompson said.

Thompson said she got the idea for incorporating Sikeston's birthday in family nights from library director, Sue Tangeman, who's also on the planning committee for the city's sesquicentennial events and historical timeline.

To prepare for the programs, Thompson said she gathered information from the Internet, Sikeston Depot Museum, local historians and from books authored by local residents including "Sikeston Pictorial History," "History of Scott County," "Matthews: The Historic Adventures of a Pioneer Family" by Edward C. "Ned" Matthews III and "As I Remember It" by the late Helen Reuber.

"It was so wonderful because I'm not an original Sikestonian. I learned so much," Thompson said.

Thompson is also planning a birthday party for Wednesday's preschool story time, which is for children ages 2 to 5.

"I'm going to make a big cake and read some stories," Thompson said.

And this year's Mother-Daughter Tea, set for May 2 at the library, will also feature a birthday theme, Thompson said.

She's also slated to present programs for some of the local schools, such as Lee Hunter Elementary, Southeast Elementary and St. Francis Xavier School in Sikeston.

Thompson said she'll be visiting with first through third graders at St. Francis Xavier School and exploring more of Sikeston's history.

"We're making a pictorial history of some of the older houses in Sikeston," Thompson said.

While it's difficult to teach children all of Sikeston's history, the important thing is to make whatever lessons told fun and interesting. That's the key, Thompson said.

"If it's big and colorful and hands-on, they learn and will retain it."