Not Just on Oceans: The Mississippi River Capes in History

The name “Cape Girardeau” puzzles many non-residents of Southeast Missouri, who wonder why a coastal feature is at such an inland location. The confusion lies in the modern vs. historic definition of “cape” as a geographic feature. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the geographic feature of a cape as “a point or extension of land jutting out into water as a peninsula or as a projecting point.” Today, most people visualize this as a feature along seacoasts.

However, when French explorers first explored the Mississippi, the word “cap” denoted any promontory on the riverbanks. These projections were sharp bends or rock bluffs. Today, Cape Girardeau remains as the most notable.

Guillaume de L’isle prepared the first detailed map of the Mississippi River showing capes and other features. His earliest map dates to 1702, but a more accurate version is from 1718. As was the case with many cartographers, de L’isle never left France, but relied on information received from explorers and travelers. Several other visitors to the region published maps, but a notable one resulted from the visit of Lt. John Ross of the British 34^th Regiment to the region in 1765. Ross came to the area to take possession of Fort de Chartres after the French and Indian War but published the map in 1772.

Collating all the maps shows at least eight features named “capes” on the Mississippi from the area of Troy south to the Missouri Bootheel. Several have multiple names. Cap aus Gris, or Gray Cape, marked the site of a fort in the War of 1812 near Troy. “The Battle of the Sinkhole” occurred near the fort, and an unincorporated community, Cap au Gris, lies at the fort’s location today.

Pointed Cape, or Cap de la Grotte, was the first such feature south of the St. Louis area, possibly in southern Jefferson County. The name suggests a rock outcrop containing a cave, but the name disappeared early. The next cape on old maps, Cap a L’hirondelle or Cape Swallow, was upstream from the mouth of Saline Creek in Ste. Genevieve County, and was likely a nesting spot for Northern Rough-winged Swallows.

Cap St. Cosme, Cap Garlick, or Cap Cinque Hommes lies at a point opposite Gorham, Illinois, in Perry County near the mouth of Cinque Hommes Creek. This cape commemorates Father Jean Francois Buisson de Saint Cosme, a French missionary who erected a cross on Tower Rock. Later French visitors confused the pronunciation with “Cinque Hommes,” meaning “five men.” Today the cape is little-known, but the creek carries the mis-heard name.

Two capes occur at Grand Tower—Cap St. Antoine on the Illinois side marking the tip of Devil’s Backbone or Devil’s Bake Oven, and Tower Rock, also sometimes called Cap St. Antoine. Both are still notable river landmarks.

Downstream, the next cape is the most notable, Cape Girardeau. Named for the prominent rock outcrop on the west side of the river, and the trader Jean Pierre Girardeau, it carried an earlier name of La Roche brutale. Railroad construction destroyed most of the rock over 100 years ago.

One, possibly two, capes occurred south of Cape Girardeau. At Cap la Cruche, three French missionaries erected a cross on a rock island where Cape la Croix Creek entered the Mississippi in 1699. This is at the approximate location of Gray’s Point. A final landmark, which may be synonymous with Cap la Cruche, was Cap de Roche Blanche, or Cape of the White Rock. If this site was different, it occurred just south of Gray’s Point along the Benton Hills.