Southeast student details history of Cape buildings

Southeast Missouri State University historic preservation major Lindsey Lotz has put her book learning into practice in a variety of ways -- from volunteering at Bollinger Mill State Historic Site to creating posters for historic downtown Cape Girardeau buildings.

The posters, which offer some history of each building and a photo, will be displayed through May 31 at 20 Broadway, 120 Broadway, 19 N. Spanish St. and 7-19 S. Spanish St. as part of the celebration of National Historic Preservation Month.

Lotz plans to graduate cum laude from Southeast on May 17 with a bachelor of science in history, with a major in historic preservation and a minor in history. Having completed this project, Lotz also will graduate with academic distinction in the Department of History.

The idea of creating the posters was born when Lotz attended a National Trust for Historic Preservation conference in Washington state. Around Spokane, Wash., she said, there were posters in buildings that were important to that city, and she thought that would be a "cool" venture for Cape Girardeau.

"It's not a project I had to do; it's a project I wanted to do ...," Lotz said.

She worked on the project, including the posters, from August 2013 until mid-April.

Lotz had to have the posters approved by the Historic Preservation Commission, Old Town Cape and the Convention and Visitors Bureau, plus each building's owner. The language on each poster then had to be edited.

The project's objective was to showcase the organizations in Cape Girardeau that work together to help preserve the historic district.

"I feel like I achieved my goal. I got four groups to work together to show a common front, which is really awesome ... because it can be hard to get four different groups of people that have the same goal to think the same way about something," Lotz said.

Information on the buildings came from National Register of Historic Places nomination information, Southeast Missourian newspaper articles, Census Bureau records and historic blog posts.

Photos on the posters came from the Southeast Missourian, Tom Neumeyer, the sponsors and Lotz, who took some herself.

"The colors ... [on the posters] weren't picked willy nilly. ... They were picked because they were common colors in all the sponsors' logos. ... The picture frames are an ode to the fact that it's the historic district," Lotz said.

She also included stories about each building. For example, the Kage House was built on land originally owned by Louis Lorimier, who is credited with founding Cape Girardeau.

"The evolution of the house was really interesting. ... It was a single-family house, then it went to being an apartment building. From an apartment building, it became an office building, and today ... it's a storefront, so learning about that was pretty interesting," Lotz said.

A legend about Kage House is that at one point it was sold for 300 gallons of whiskey.

The building at 19 N. Spanish was an A&P grocery store, formally known as The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. Inc., which was the first national supermarket chain. The store in Cape Girardeau was built in 1941 and was so large the chain shut down two other stores in town, Lotz said.

Steven J. Hoffman, professor in the department of history and coordinator of the Historic Preservation program at Southeast, said Lotz's project gave her a chance to see what it's like to tackle a project in the real world while still in college. And it falls in line with the Historic Preservation program, which tries to combine theoretical classroom learning with how it applies in the real world.

"I think it's been a really valuable experience for her," Hoffman said. "She had to go through the process of finding buildings that would be good, then start working with partners and encountering the realities," such as owners who wouldn't let her put up posters.

"A lot of times when you're in a school program, you're kind of cut off from the rest of the world. You get to see how a project might work in a perfect world, then you graduate and realize the world's not perfect. ... This gives her a real taste of how these projects get implemented out in the world, and then, secondarily from my perspective, it also is a nice opportunity to bring some historical and architectural information to the general public," Hoffman said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639

Pertinent address:

20 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

120 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

19 N. Spanish St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.

7-19 S. Spanish St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.