CAPE GIRARDEAU IN THE '20S: STREET CARS, JAZZ AND PROSPERITY

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- It was a time of street cars, excursion boats and the dawning of the jazz age, and the fledgling Southeast Missouri city of Cape Girardeau was steeped in the "Roaring '20s."

Three residents of Cape Girardeau remember well the 1920s as a time of innocence, prosperity and growing community pride.

Mary Helen Flentge was born here in 1911. She was graduated from Cape Central High School, now the Louis J. Schultz grade school, in 1928. Flentge also attended Southeast Teacher's College here before transferring to the University of Missouri-Columbia.

She remembers street cars in Cape Girardeau that ran along West End Boulevard. Flentge said the street's grass strip served as the corridor for the street cars.

Robert Lamkin, born here in 1909 the year his family opened the Buckner-Ragsdale store on Main Street was graduated from Central in 1927. He said he remembers that West End Boulevard, now a misnomer situated in the heart of Cape Girardeau, was then aptly named.

"The city's boundaries didn't go west very far then," he said. "As a kid, when you got to West End Boulevard, you were practically out of town."

Lamkin said that during the 1920s there was "quite a visible" competition in Cape Girardeau between the Main and Good Hope then known only as Haarig business districts. "The competition was keen and sometimes, very bitter," he said. "But I think Cape Girardeau during the decade prospered very well."

Lamkin said that in the retail sales business, which his family was in, Cape Girardeau obviously prospered during the 1920s.

"Cape always has sort of been the hub of Southeast Missouri, being the largest town between St. Louis and Memphis," he said. "Naturally, the pace wasn't as it is now; life was a little easier."

Lamkin said many of the city's major developments of the time were the result of civic cooperation, including the construction of Southeast Missouri Hospital, the Mississippi River bridge, and the Marquette Hotel.

"The place was very civic-minded," he said. "There was a lot of civic pride and a lot of development during that time.

Flentge said that during the prosperous times, social activity also flourished for the city's young men and women.

"One of the fun things we used to do is go on riverboat excursions," she said. "Eagle Packet Line had boats that came here and moved cotton or whatever else up and down the river.

"On the upper deck they had a dining room with a room to dance. We would take afternoon excursions where we would go down to Commerce, and, when we had enough money, we would come back and have dinner. It was very elegant."

Flentge fondly remembers the "wonderful" pineapple fritters that were served on the packet boats.

"If we couldn't afford dinner, we would walk to a place in Commerce where they had ice-cream cones," she said. "It was beautiful to ride on the river and see the scenery. Those were very special times."

Aleen Wehking was graduated from Central in 1925 and from the teacher's college here in 1932. She remembers well the jazz music that was played on the boats and at various sites in Cape Girardeau.

"All the young people learned to dance," Wehking said. "There was the fox trots and the waltzes, and you danced together, not like they do now."

Flentge said Cape Girardeau actually helped spawn the jazz age with its favorite musician son of the time, Jess Stacey. "Jess Stacey is honored all over the world as one of the first and best jazz pianists," she said. "He used to come to our house and play piano."

Lamkin called the music of the 1920s "very danceable. There was a lot of sentimental stuff which likely was the aftermath of the first world war," he said. "There was the fox trot, then along came the Charleston, then the flappers."

A jazz orchestra also would play for public dances at the Fairground Park Pavilion, situated northeast of where the Capaha Park swimming pool is now.

When Flentge attended the teachers college here, she said the administration put a stop to such "decadent" activities as public dances.

"I will tell you, that school then could not have been stricter if it were a church school with the strictest rules," she said. "No one was allowed to dance, and women weren't allowed to get in cars. Of course, they all went down to Pacific and did anyway."

Flentge said that even card playing was prohibited in the school's dormitories. "They made sure nothing was going on that was unacceptable, which I assume involved everything that breathed in and out," she said.

Another favorite activity for young men and women in the 1920s was to go to local "soda shops" to eat ice cream and just "hang out." Some things don't change much with time, said Flentge.

A special treat was I. Ben Miller's Ice Cream and Candy Shop on Main Street. Miller had a dairy farm near the intersection of Sprigg and Bertling where he raised his own dairy cows for the renowned ice cream.

"Long before people worried about such things, Mr. I. Ben had a spotless barn," Flentge said. "I'll tell you there has never been that good of ice cream since."

Wehking said one popular meeting place for youngsters was at the corner of Broadway and Pacific where Howard's Sporting Goods is now. Flentge and Lamkin also remember the establishment, called Mickey's, then Baker's and Clifton's.

"That was a soda place with booths, and there were always young men standing out at the front," Flentge said. "Then, as now, people drove around in their cars and you always found a friend at Mickey's."

Courthouse Park; the Elks Club on Themis, between Spanish and Main; the St. Charles Hotel at the corner of Main and Themis, and the city's two movie houses on Broadway and Good Hope also served as entertainment in Cape Girardeau.

Wehking said she remembers going to "picture shows" at the Broadway Theater for less than 25 cents. "If I had a date it wouldn't cost me anything," she said. She said the theater had a full orchestra and an organ that was played by Will Shivelbine, the first of many musically inclined Shivelbines.

Weekend sporting events also drew the interest of the townspeople, and local rivalries were as intense then as today.

"There were the big rivalries then as now. The Cape-Jackson game in football and basketball was always the highlight of the season," said Lamkin. "When Cape played at Jackson, all the dads had to fill their cars and take the kids over there. It was quite a 10-mile trip."

Wehking still is an avid sports fan after first becoming interested in sports at college, where she was president of the first "pep squad."

"The girls were known as the Tomahawks and the guys were the Scalpers," she said. "President (Joseph) Serena wanted some enthusiasm with sports."

Lamkin said the city during the 1920s was influenced economically and socially by a strong religious community. "The churches, then as now, were very responsible for the quality of life that Cape enjoyed."

Flentge said that although it wasn't a time of "pinching," Cape Girardeau was, economically, very conservative. She said her father owned a drug store on Good Hope in Haarig. "Dad explained to me once that this town was so conservative, he said, `It was not deemed necessary to pave Good Hope until a team of mules was mired down and rendered helpless.'"

But Flentge said that in spite of the changes since the 1920s, Cape Girardeau still prides itself as a city of homes, schools and churches. "I think that quality has always been maintained through the years," she said.

"I still think it's a lovely city," said Wehking. "My roots are here and there are not too many of us left, so I have really watched it grow. I thought it was great growing up in Cape. I really did."