At 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 19, 1901, J. H. Tettaton proceeded from the Dunklin County jail, escorted by Deputies John H. Bledsoe and Hiram A. Gardner, and preceded by Sheriff Will Satterfield, to a gallows in Kennett.

The name “Cape Girardeau” puzzles many non-residents of Southeast Missouri, who wonder why a coastal feature is at such an inland location.

American settlers in Missouri 200 years ago would have been familiar with a ghostly “booming” sound heard in later winter and early spring on prairies. The source of this sound was displaying male greater prairie chickens.

Misfortune followed the Annie P. Silver. Built in summer 1878 from the dismantled Susie Silver, she operated in the St. Louis-New Orleans trade.

Rural residents often viewed lawyers suspiciously if they moved into their neighborhood after the Civil War with the intent of making their fortune. Such was not the case with Benjamin Benson Cahoon.

The death of George M. Nicholas in 1912 occurred under suspicious circumstances. Nicholas was a rich Virginia farmer who amassed substantial cash and property, aided by his miserly habits. He had been a recluse, never married, and left no will. His heirs were his four brothers. Surprisingly, evidence suggested Nicholas died by poison placed in his coffee.

The December 19, 1910, issue of The National Tribune of Washington, D. C. contained a letter from James A. Lawrence of Tecumseh, Nebraska, concerning an event from the Civil War in Cape Girardeau County in September 1863.

Prior to digital photography, photographers had the problem of taking dozens of portrait photographs for school yearbooks quickly. Cameras used before the 1920s required frequent changes of film, slowing the process, and increasing costs. A Ste. Genevieve photographer, Vincent J. Dunker, solved the problem by inventing a specialty, long-roll camera for school portrait photography.

Rev. Timothy Flint and his family descended the Ohio in 1816. At its lower end, Flint noted that his “…children contemplated with unsated curiosity the flocks of parroquets fluttering among the trees, when we came near the shore.” The parakeets that so fascinated Rev. Flint’s children were the now-extinct Carolina Parakeet.

The aviation pioneer Tony Jannus provided many residents of Mississippi River towns their first view of an airplane in November 1912. Jannus was a pioneer who piloted early models of aircraft and pointed out the potential of aviation. Among other things, he piloted the plane from which the first parachute jump occurred on March 1, 1912, near St. Louis.