Thanks for the link to the Marquette Cement plant works. Yes, your research of operation right on track! Don Neumeyer
This post is primarily for Keith Robinson, but I wanted it available for all to view. Since you, Keith, are the preeminent custodian and affiicionado of all things "Cape Girardeau," I want to send you some memorabilia that I collected over the years regarding the Cape Transit System streetcar line. You may do what you wish with them. Included are a complete history of the line published in the "Southeast Missourian," plus photos and a map of Cape showing the lines. I may have earlier sent you or Tim Cannon my own photo of the (Missouri Utilities) two-stall car barn on North Main Street. The line was shut down in 1937 and replaced in 1941 by four short GM buses (which I rode), plus one longer one for special and standby use. Even in the 1960s most of the trolley rails were still in place, along with the brick pavements on many streets including Main and Broadway. The only exception was West End Boulevard, where the center median had been built over the tracks, which is the only obvious evidence remaining today of the streetcar line. Since the city was aggressively repaving the various streets and removing the embedded rails, I undertook in 1969 to document where they went, including the downtown Main/Spanish loop, the main loop out to SEMO college and Capaha Park, returning via Good Hope with a passing siding in that street, the long line from Broadway south on Frederick Street to the Frisco shops, and the North Main extension to the shoe factory. I carefully drew the line route on a 1968 map of Cape, so I will send that to you as well. Would you please send me your current mailing address so that I can forward these items to you? Thank you. Ken McElreath
I thank my dad, Martin Robinson, for a nearly unbelievable step-by-step story of all the processes in play at the cement plant, including details about how everything one might want to know about the operations there, even down to the sources for all the raw materials (gypsum, powdered iron, coal), how much of each was used, and how the finished product (Portland cement or mortar cement) was made and then shipped, and in what quantities. He has/had an almost insatiable curiosity about the world around him and has always had an incredible memory for all the details as well. He worked there for 13 years, from 1955 to 1968, and as an industrial electrician, had access to all the areas of the plant.
August 1951 Frisco Derailment Cape Girardeau, MO From the Southeast Missourian Saturday, Aug. 18, 1951. Synopsis: In 1951, an overheated journal on a southbound Frisco train separated a wheel from its axle causing a derailment that ripped up 3,000 feet of track adjacent to the Red Star suburb in Cape Girardeau. In all, 27 cars, with 26 loaded, of the 88-car freight train were dumped helter-skelter along the right of way and piled up in a huge heap in a trestle-spanned ravine. The area extended from the Simpson Oil Co. tanks south to the Erlbacher Machine Shop at 1300 Water St. No one was injured. The wreck occurred shortly after 1 a.m. and blocked both northbound and southbound passenger trains from their regular runs. The southbound train halted at Cape Rock where 119 passengers were transferred to three Greyhound buses. A new trestle was built to replace the one demolished by the stacked cars. https://www.semissourian.com/blogs/...7aqDO6PG5pUad1x5KajJTGFuuuKXMWzapKhsvb-YnsPxw
