Cape Girardeau, MO: Wandering Walks of Wonder Slow TV Walking Tour 4K

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Cape Girardeau, Mo is also referred to as “Cape.” This large city is about 100 miles south of St. Louis and is one of the larger cities along the banks of the Mississippi River.
The city is named after Jean Baptiste de Girardot, who established a temporary trading post in the area around 1733. He was a French soldier stationed at Kaskaskia between 1704 and 1720 in the French colony of La Louisiane. The "Cape" in the city name referred to a rock promontory overlooking the Mississippi River. In 1799, American settlers founded the first English school west of the Mississippi River in Cape Girardeau at a landmark called Mount Tabor, named by the settlers for the Biblical Mount Tabor. The town of Cape Girardeau was incorporated in 1808, prior to Missouri statehood. It was reincorporated as a city in 1843. The advent of the steamboat in 1835 and related river trade stimulated the development of Cape Girardeau as the biggest port on the Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee.
During the Civil War, the city was the site of the Battle of Cape Girardeau on April 26, 1863. The Union and Confederate armies engaged in a minor four-hour skirmish, each sustaining casualties generally believed to be in the low double-digits.
For years travelers had to use ferries to cross the Mississippi River from Cape Girardeau. In September 1928 a bridge was completed between Missouri and Illinois. Built to accommodate cars, it was 20 feet wider under standards of the time. A new bridge was completed. In December 2003, the "Old Bridge" was succeeded by a new four-lane cable-stayed bridge crossing the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau. Its official name is "The Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge.", honoring former U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson
The Old Federal Courthouse, located at Broadway and Fountain Streets and built in the late 1940s, was the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case when it was being developed. In United States v. Carmack, 329 U.S. 230 (1946), the Court upheld the federal government's authority under the Condemnation Act of 1888 to seize land owned by a state or locality.
There are 39 historic sites in Cape Girardeau that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Of these, eight are historic districts, such as Cape Girardeau Commercial Historic District is where this walk takes place.