MURALS TURN 50 YEARS OLD

The Art of Printing mural features from left: Col. Robert Sturdivant (reading a newspaper), who published one of Cape Girardeau's early newspapers, Southeast Missourian publisher George Naeter (seated), city editor Allan Hinchey (in bow tie) and railroad builder and author Louis Houck (standing with his hand on a stack of books.)

Browse through old newspapers and you catch a glimpse of history.

But Cape Girardeau's rich past and that of the Southeast Missourian also are present in the stories told in two tile murals that grace the outside of the newspaper building along Lorimier Street.

One mural depicts the history of printing and the other shows the process of gathering and disseminating news.

Included in the murals are a number of Cape Girardeans who figured prominently in the city's history as well as some of the famous people who visited the Mississippi River town years ago.

The two tile murals remain as colorful today as when they were unveiled 50 years ago.

"They are beautifully done," said Jim Parker, the retired, founding director of the Southeast Missouri State University Museum.

Parker grew up in Cape Girardeau. As a boy, he delivered newspapers for the Southeast Missourian.

"I grew up with those murals," he said.

Students in the art appreciation class at the university used to visit the murals. "We walked down there," Parker recalled.

Tile murals are common in southwestern states, but the Missourian murals are unique in this area, he said.

George and Fred Naeter, the founding publishers of the Southeast Missourian, envisioned putting tile murals on the exterior of an addition to the newspaper building.

When the addition was erected in 1936, two panels were constructed in the concrete wall to hold the tile murals.

But it took the Naeters another decade to realize their dream because no tile company wanted to make a tile mural that would withstand the region's temperature extremes.

Finally, the Mosaic Tile Co. of Zanesville, Ohio, agreed to make the 6-inch tile panels using an underglaze ceramic stain process.

The murals were originally done as oil sketches by St. Louis artist Ary Marbane.

The tile murals took two years to make. The actual casting process required more than a year.

According to the newspaper's own account, the tiles probably were the first of their kind to be made in the United States.

The Naeters, always perfectionists, returned 14 tiles that didn't meet their standards. The finished work was unveiled on Aug. 18, 1947.

The "Art of Printing" mural shows the history of printing. The Naeters were well acquainted with the printing side of the newspaper business. Both men began their careers as apprentices hand setting type.

The mural shows Gutenberg, who made the first movable type and printing press when he printed the Bible in 1450.

A bearded, pipe-smoking man in the foreground sets type on a Washington Hand Press, the type on which early American newspapers were printed. A third type of press, the cylinder rotary press, is shown with a young woman feeding paper into the machine.

The mural's background shows the rural setting of early Cape Girardeau. A red school house named for Louis Lorimier pays tribute to the French-Canadian who founded the city. A horse and buggy, behind the one-room school, winds its way toward a farm house.

The Naeters chose to include three of Cape Girardeau's prominent leaders in the mural.

First and foremost is Louis Houck, who worked as a young man in his father's print shop. Houck, who wrote a history of Southeast Missouri, is shown with his hand on a stack of newly bound books.

Besides being an author, Houck was a railroad builder, lawyer and promoter of the Normal School, which became Southeast Missouri State University.

Behind Houck stands Allan Hinchey, a former city editor at the Southeast Missourian and a dedicated supporter of the Cape Girardeau area.

The mural shows Col. Robert Sturdivant, who published a Cape Girardeau newspaper. In the mural, Sturdivant watches the printer setting type.

George Naeter, the meticulous printer, also is shown on the mural, leaning back in his chair and checking a page of copy.

The second mural, titled "Gathering and Disseminating News," is set against a background of what was then modern news gathering methods.

It depicts the marvels of the machine age, including the telephone, radio and air travel.

The mural shows Fred Naeter seated behind his desk. Seated by the desk are Salvation Army Gen. Evangeline Booth and evangelist Billy Sunday.

Booth, the daughter of the founder of the Salvation Army, came to Cape Girardeau in 1940 at the invitation of the newspaper to formally christen the Arena Building.

Sunday held huge revivals in the city in 1926 at the invitation of the Southeast Missourian. The five-week revival attracted over 250,000 people.

Three others who visited the city at the newspaper's request also are shown.

President Truman came to Cape Girardeau at the invitation of the newspaper when he was judge of Jackson County. He spoke to civic leaders about highway beautification projects.

Behind Truman stands a hatted John Philip Sousa. The marching band leader came to Cape Girardeau in 1929 and gave his only free concert west of the Mississippi River. He gave the concert on behalf of the newspaper.

French opera singer Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink stands next to Truman. She sang in Cape Girardeau in 1920 at ceremonies dedicating the first rotary press in Missouri south of St. Louis.

The late Dr. Joseph Serena, who served as the university's president, once wrote about the tiles.

"There seems no more enduring way to preserve a people's history than to picture it in tile," he wrote."

He said the Missourian murals attracted a lot of public attention. "They are something new and seldom is there not someone observing them.

"One hundred years from now they will have impressed great numbers and may be priceless," he wrote.