The end of an era in East Cape Girardeau: Joe Aden retires as mayor

This story is updated.

EAST CAPE GIRARDEAU, Ill. -- Joe R. Aden became mayor of East Cape Girardeau in 1977 -- during the first year of Jimmy Carter's presidency.

Since he first took on the role, seven mayors have served the much larger Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on the other side of the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge.

Aden, 81, will finally give up the elected position serving the tiny village when he retires not long after the April 6 municipal election.

He said he was encouraged to run again but four decades in the job, Aden said, is enough.

"I've been mayor here half of my life," said Aden, who moved to East Cape Girardeau two years before it was incorporated in 1975.

Aden was out of office for four of the last 44 years, as the late Alvin W. "Blue" Blumenberg succeeded Aden in office from 2009-2013, after which time Aden returned to the job.

Blumenberg died in March 2016.

"I'd say 95% of the job has been great but the rest of it was pretty rough," admitted Aden, interviewed Tuesday in East Cape Girardeau's temporary office in the Pit Stop Pizza building along Route 146.

The village's permanent hall, which originally flooded with a reported 7 inches of standing water, is still under repair.

"We're working on (the hall) and we have gotten some financial help from the state," informed Aden.

The worst moment in his 44-year mayoralty?

"It's definitely the 2019 flood, the mother lode; we couldn't get in or out (and) there was a moment when I thought we might lose our town," Aden said.

Remembering 2019

• Routes 3 and 146 between East Cape Girardeau and McClure, Illinois, were closed for 36 days, from June 21 until July 26.
• The Illinois Emergency Management Agency reported "well over 250,000 sandbags," each with an average weight of 40 pounds, were used in the East Cape Girardeau and McClure areas.
• By Aug. 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency office in Anna, Illinois, declared 26,000 acres of Alexander County farmland to be "unplantable" because of flooding.
• All the residents of East Cape Girardeau's mobile home community were forced to evacuate.

"Our village trustees were forced to condemn the trailers (there)," said Aden, acknowledging East Cape Girardeau lost more residents, who never returned after the flood two years ago.

In 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, East Cape Girardeau had 437 residents.

In 2019, according to an unofficial census estimate, the hamlet's population had dropped to 286, a nearly 35% drop in two decades.

Best memories

During his long tenure, Aden said, East Cape Girardeau got a natural gas system, a sewage system and cable television.

"Our roads were in good shape, too, until the (2019) flood," he added, also pointing out the village was never in the red financially.

"When (East Cape Girardeau) was incorporated in 1975, the village didn't have a cent," said the octogenarian mayor, noting with appreciation the generosity of the late Clyde "Bud" Pearce, longtime owner of the former Purple Crackle Club, who allowed village elders to meet onsite in the early days.

Challenges

"Living in a small town, everyone knows one another and we all have to work together," Aden said, lamenting "a few can't be satisfied."

"We're still recovering from the flood, obviously," the mayor said, but added he is encouraged some families are starting to relocate to East Cape Girardeau.

Aden will be followed in office by one of the village's current trustees, Randy Morgan, who is the sole mayoral candidate on the ballot next month.

His advice to his successor?

"I'd tell (Randy) to have a lot of patience and to remember you can't please everyone."

What's next

Aden, a former record-setting Illinois prep basketball star who scored 3,031 points between 1954 and 1958 for Dongola High and who is a member of the state's high school hall of fame, has acknowledged health problems.

He works out several times a week in Cape Girardeau but can no longer shoot baskets because of a nagging shoulder problem.

Aden said he Is looking forward to spending time with family, noting his two children and three grandchildren -- all of them local -- once he leaves his mayoral responsibilities behind.