Wartime watch on the Mississippi River bridge

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was calling for planes, tanks, ships and billions of dollars.

The year was 1942, and Roosevelt was telling the nation what it would take to win a war that was triggered by the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Roosevelt ordered U.S. factories to produce 60,000 planes, 45,000 tanks, 20,000 anti-aircraft guns. He also asked for a war chest of $59 billion. In Cape Girardeau, flight training was conducted by the Army at Harris Field, now the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport. A Navy aviation unit was located on Highway 74.

In the war's earlier days, guards stood at either end of the Mississippi River bridge at Cape Girardeau and the railroad bridge that crossed the same span of water from Thebes, Ill., to Scott City, Mo.

This was a time of war.

Readers were reminded of some of these actions recently when a picture of a guard at the tollbooth of the traffic bridge here appeared on the Faces & Places page of the Southeast Missourian.

The surprise air attack at Pearl Harbor hardly took two hours, but it claimed the lives of more than 2,400 Americans, sank or severely damaged 21 ships in the U.S. Pacific fleet, and destroyed 188 U.S. aircraft. It plunged America into a world war against the forces of Germany, Italy and Japan.

A lot of rumors were floating around a few days after Pearl Harbor in the immediate Southeast Missouri area.

One was that a Japanese mini-sub would travel up the Mississippi River.

Authorities knew small subs could maneuver the Mississippi. In 1919, a captured German mini-submarine, manned by an American force, made a trip up the Mississippi to St. Louis, stopping at Cape Girardeau.

So, four days after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, men braved subfreezing December temperatures to patrol bridges here to prevent possible sabotage.

At first, men with military experience were hired as guards and worked 12-hour shifts. On the Illinois side of the river, the bridge was patrolled by members of the Illinois Reserve Militia.

Later, a detachment of 16 soldiers was dispatched here from Cairo, Ill., and took over guarding the traffic bridge. The soldiers were housed in special Army quarters at the Arena Building.

"They stopped all vehicles that crossed the bridge," said one observer. "You couldn't have cameras. Guards were placed on each side of the bridge. By February 1942, U.S. Army regulars from Fort Custer, Mich., had taken over guard duties. The Michigan troops were founded to perform security during the absence of the Michigan National Guard, and to perform "homeland defense." The group provided service guarding the nation's bridges, tunnels and other vital installations.

Sheep work during WWII

During the same era, a federal government order curtailing the use of electric and gasoline power in the nation, sent the city of Cape Girardeau searching for an energy-saving means of cutting the grass in a then newly opened Fairground (Arena) Park. The park had opened in 1939. The city purchased 20 sheep to graze in the park to keep the grass trimmed, because power mowers could no longer be purchased. The city later added 15 sheep.

Not only did the sheep keep the grass at manageable length, they helped "pay their own keep." At shearing time, the 35 sheep provided enough wool to generate about $80 to the sheep fund.

Arch plans didn't make it

The Arena Park's arch, tower and sign never made it

When Nelda Braswell moved into a house in Cape Girardeau in 1962, she discovered an old supplement to the Southeast Missourian.

"It contained a watercolor art (about 11-by-15) of a proposal for the entrance to the park," said Braswell.

The art was architect Hal Lynch's suggestion for a development that would include an arch, tower and sign for the entrance to the new park, with the Arena Building in the background.

On the backside of the color art was an explanation of Cape Girardeau's new "Fairground Park," showing an aerial view of the park and photos of the Arena Building.

Lynch and J. Carl Jourdan were architects for the Arena Building The project was part of the Works Progress Administration program that provided jobs to workers during the Great Depression.

It was more than 60 years ago that construction of the Arena Building in the then-Fairgrounds Park started.

The 50-acre park and its multipurpose building were described as the largest WPA project of its type in Missouri, and the largest ever attempted in Southeast Missouri. The Arena Building was built of concrete and was said to be the largest architectural concrete building in the nation's Middle West. During the first year of construction, some 234 men were employed on the project -- 95 laborers, 15 carpenters, 16 carpenter's helpers and two timekeepers.

The list of supplies for the building included 100,000 feet of lumber, used for forms; 18,000 sacks of concrete; more than 3,000 cubic yards of concrete; about 10,000 tons of rock and sand; 92 tons of reinforcing steel; and thousands of feet of pipe and electric conduit. And the building was only three-quarters completed at that point.

The roof over the main arena had a clear span of 107 feet. Two heating plants were to be used in the building, a hot-air furnace, possibly the largest in use in Southeast Missouri, with two giant fans to provide heat and circulation. Planning for the project started in 1937, with construction beginning in 1938. The building was of grandiose scale for that period, with an auditorium that seated more than 3,000 people, a stage, dressing rooms, dining room and kitchen, conference rooms and everything necessary for a community all-purpose building. The first general meeting in the Arena Building was the appearance of Gen. Evangeline Booth of the Salvation Army in 1940.