Frozen in time; Postcard collection captures Poplar Bluff’s past

Bill Webb of Puxico inherited a treasure from his late sister, Linda Webb Clapsaddle, which he’s willing to share with folks interested in Poplar Bluff’s bygone days.

His sister and her husband, John, collected more than 80 historical postcards of Poplar Bluff churches, schools and downtown, when horses and buggies were the mode of transportation, as well as the early years of automobiles.

The Clapsaddles began collecting because a distant cousin, Ellen Hattie Clapsaddle, was a famous postcard writer. As they searched for Clapsaddle’s cards, Linda accumulated historic cards of her hometown.

“They went to card shows in Kansas City where they lived,” Webb said. “That’s how they ended up with her getting so many wonderful cards. Preserving history is important, especially when it’s in their own backyard.”

“If something happens to me, I would like to donate it to a museum or something,” said Webb. “I feel very fortunate to get it given to me. I want people to see it. There’s a lot of people who remember those things.”

“My grandpa helped lay the brick streets,” Webb recalled. “His name was James Edward Webb. He also worked for Missouri Pacific Railroad.”

Thumbing through the collection stirs Webb’s early memories of growing “up on the east side.”

He recalls as a child watching the bottles come up in the machine at the Dr. Pepper Bottling Company on the corner of Bartlett and B streets.

Cards featuring flat bottom houseboats on the Black River remind him of stories “my father telling me about houseboats.”

Webb learned as an adult, his dad had been married before marrying his mother. The first wife “lived in one of the boats,” he said, adding a few years ago, he learned he had a half brother.

“We never knew he existed,” Webb said.

The brother stayed on the riverboat and “my dad would go visit him. He died before I got to meet him.”

Webb said, “My mom was 16 and my dad was 32 when they got married. She had nine kids by the time she was 26.”

He and three sisters survived, the others died young, he said.

“Me, I am a picker, an antique picker,” he said, smiling, before adding, “actually, I’m a scrapper like my dad. When I was a kid, I never knew him to work in any job at any place other than hauling or moving something. His name was Calvin Webb.”

He used a “pickup truck and that’s the way he made a living for us.”

Webb remembers, “there used to be an old blacksmith shop across from the houseboats. Carl Kernek was German. His dad had the shop before he had it. He’d come every day to work on horses. I remember horses and wagons coming by my house.”

The blacksmith shop was located at 202 Riverview Drive in the 1960s, according to a Poplar Bluff City Directory.

Flipping through the album, Webb finds photos of the train stations, hotels, churches and businesses from the early years of horse and buggy days to the 1970s.

The collection includes “pictures of the depot, even the Frisco depot,” which serves as the community’s railroad museum today, Webb said.

Pointing to a card featuring the city light and water plant, Webb said, “I remember that when I was a kid.”

Others bring to mind “the old Frisco bridge. Here’s one of the Black River bridge when it was new,” Webb said.

Webb spotted a card featuring the railroad’s YMCA.

“I remember that building very well and the stairway,” said Webb, referring to the original grand staircase leading from the depot to North Main Street.

Hotels were abundant downtown.

Webb said, “I never heard of the Queen Hotel.”

Other hotels no longer in existence include the Quinn, Dunn and Crown.

“This is definitely a hotel I never heard of, the Givens,” but the card boasts “every room with air conditioning.”

“There are so many neat pictures,” Webb said, pointing to one featuring the Dalton Adding Machine Company, which also housed the International Shoe Company and the box factory. Today, the dog park is located on the site by the Black River.

Dalton is James Lewis Dalton, known as the inventor, the patentee and marketer of the adding machine. The Daltons’ home on North Main Street is the Margaret Harwell Art Museum.

Also creating fond memories is a card of the Rodgers Theatre, taken in its early days.

Some cards appear to have been printed before the 1927 tornado, which destroyed much of downtown.

Businesses and restaurants along Highway 67 appear on some cards.

Webb recalls, “my sister’s first job was as a cook. Her first paycheck, she gave to my family, which paid the mortgage off on our house. It’s a neat story.”

While reminiscing about the restaurants, Webb said, “my mom was a cook. She worked for Edward Brothers at the little Hickory House Jr., which sat across from Doctors Hospital.”

Webb’s mother worked for Brothers, also known as “Redbird,” for 20 years at different places.

“He bought a place called Pepe’s House of Pizza. My dad died when I was 12. So my mom put me to work washing dishes at the restaurant to keep me off the streets. I worked for 50 cents an hour. He was very nice to let mom bring me to work with her, because that kept me busy and gave me a little bit of money.”

Webb worked for Pioneer Seed Corn Co. in Iowa from 1974 and 2014. After retiring, he worked as a coach for the Special Olympics before returning to Southeast Missouri.