Colony Club in IllinoisDonald Johnson and the late Bill Prater were returning from Cairo, Ill., one night in the late 1950s.

Johnson, more fondly known as "Gabby," was familiar with the Colony Club at Illinois highways 3 and 146, a few miles east of Cape Girardeau. He had served as a waiter there.

As Johnson and Prater neared the intersection, they noticed more light than usual. The hour was late.

"It was burning," said Johnson.

Realizing that the club's owner, John Wilson, had an upstairs bedroom at the club, Johnson and Prater pulled around the back of the building and started yelling.

"Eventually, I heaved a brick through an upstairs window," recalled Johnson. "That got some response."

When Wilson peered out of the upstairs window, he was urged to jump.

"We'll catch you," said Johnson.

Wilson jumped, Johnson and Prater broke his fall.

The nightclub was destroyed by the fire.

Johnson, who is now a bartender at the Purple Crackle Club just across the river bridge, was reminded of the past recently when he noticed a photograph of the "old" Colony Club on the Faces & Places page of the Southeast Missourian.

"I recognized the picture immediately," said Johnson.

A lot of readers didn't.

More than half of the 100 responses identified the picture as the Colonial Tavern restaurant, previously at Broadway and Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau.

The two structures were similar in appearance.

Phyllis Heise said the picture could have been the Colonial Tavern, but she didn't remember it being famous for Chinese food.

Mary Miller of Jackson had another guess. "I thought the place known nationally for its steaks and Chinese food was the Purple Crackle," she said. "The first time I had Chinese food was there."

Researching Southeast Missourian files, the date the Colony Club burned its last table candle remained elusive. If you know the date -- or have other memories about "the little Vegas" that made Southern Illinois a destination for tourists, let us know. E-mail rowen@semissourian.com.

Sisters on birthday outing

Loretta Schneider quickly identified the picture of a group of Franciscan Sisters from old St. Francis Hospital on an outing to Lake Wappapello. "My mother was with the group," said Schneider, in reference to Corona Fuerth, who accompanied the group on a birthday outing for Sister Cortona.

The picture appeared recently on the Faces & Places page in the Southeast Missourian.

Mark Seyer, Barbara Seyer Reynolds and Fuerth accompanied the group.

The group, using two boats, were identified as, from left: Sister Virgilia, Sister Flora, Fuerth, Sister Priscilla, Sister Jona, Sister Cortona, Sister Juanita, Reynolds, Seyer, Sister Helena and Sister Noreen.

A third-grade class at Clippard Elementary School in Cape Girardeau also identified the photo.

"The picture appeared in the "City of Roses" book, published by the Southeast Missourian in 1993," said Toni Dement, third-grade teacher.

"Our third-grade class was studying our community this week and we had just noticed the picture in the book," Dement said.

Cordelia Peters recognized some of the sisters in the boat.

Peters, a secretary, worked with some of the Sisters at St. Francis. Anne Knaup, who had X-ray training at the hospital also recognized some of the Sisters.

Which came first?

Which came first, the ice cream cone or the St. Louis World's Fair? Somewhere along the historic invention trail, the cone, the hot dog bun and the hamburger were attributed to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition -- better known as the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

But according to a World's Fair collector and historian, the ice cream cone didn't make its frosty debut at the 1904 exposition. "It was popularized there, but it wasn't invented there," said Max Storm, a longtime World's Fair collector and historian.

It turns out that the ice cream cone was the idea of New Yorker Italo Marchiony, who had held a U.S. patent on the cone since Dec. 13, 1903.

Marchiony had been selling lemon ice in a cone from his pushcart since 1896. He described his product as being "like a waffle iron, producing several small pastry cups with sloping sides." Perhaps pastry baker Ernest M. Hamwi of St. Louis was not aware of Marchiony's patent. During the sweltering summer days of the St. Louis World's Fair -- it opened April 30, 1904, -- Hamwi rolled up some of his Zalabia pastry and sold the cones to an ice cream concessionaire who was running out of dishes. Another St. Louisan, Abe Dopumar, claimed to have invented the ice cream cone in a very similar way at the fair, making a cone of a waffle, filling it with ice cream and selling it.

The plot thickens. A Turkish native named David Avayou, who had owned several ice cream shops in New Jersey, claimed he started selling edible cones at the St. Louis Fair. We all scream for ice cream, but who screamed first?

There were about 50 ice cream stands at the fair in St. Louis. Without doubt, the 1904 World's Fair was the spot where the cone became king of cool treats. They called it the "World's Fair Cornucopia." Ice cream aside, 1904 laid claim to another headline grabber in St. Louis.

Not many people, even people from St. Louis, are aware of the 1904 Olympics, held for the first time in the United States, at St. Louis. "This was only the third time the modern Olympics were held," said Storm. The event was organized to encourage world peace and friendship and promote amateur athletics, said Storm.

The first Summer Olympics was held in 1896 at Athens, Greece. In 1900, the Olympics were held in Paris, France, and in 1904, in St. Louis. The Olympics didn't return to the United States again until 1932, at Los Angeles.

The St. Louis World's Fair, by the way, will mark its 100th anniversary in 2004. Meet me in St. Louis!

B. Ray Owen is the Southeast Missourian's community news editor. Contact him at P.O. Box 699; Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702, by phone at (573) 335-6611, ext. 133, or by e-mail at rowen@semissourian.com.