Bill Eddleman
Host, Tales from Days Gone ByBill Eddleman was born in Cape Girardeau, and is an 8th-generation Cape Countian. His first Missouri ancestor came to the state in 1802. He attended SEMO for two years before transferring to the University of Missouri to study Fisheries and Wildlife Biology. He stayed at Mizzou to earn a master of science in Fisheries and Wildlife, and continued studies in Wildlife Ecology at Oklahoma State University.
Bill’s professional interests were in ornithology (the study of birds) and wildlife management. Upon earning his Ph.D., he worked for the Missouri Department of Conservation, did postdoctoral research at the University of Wyoming, and then joined the Natural Resource Sciences faculty at the University of Rhode Island in 1988. He moved back to Cape Girardeau to take a similar position in the Department of Biology at SEMO in 1995. He continued in the Biology Department and several administrative positions until retiring in 2016.
Bill has always had an interest in local history and genealogy. His familiarity with Southeast Missouri history was the primary reason he became Associate Director for the State Historical Society at its Cape Girardeau Research Center in 2017. At the center, he promotes donations to their manuscript collections, provides history-themed programs for groups in their 15-county coverage area, and assists patrons with research. His own historical research interests include mainly 19th-century Southeast Missouri history, especially the Civil War era and early settlement period.
In his spare time, he serves as president of both the Missouri Birding Society and the Missouri State Genealogical Association. He and his wife Hope also reenact Civil War era history, and are active members of the Friends of Fort D in Cape.
-
At the outbreak of the Civil War, the choice of which side to join in the conflict was obvious for many young Missouri men. One stuck with family, or tradition, or with their convictions. For one young Cape Girardeau County teenager, though, the choice was not obvious. Eighteen-year-old William R. Whittaker was a resident of the Pocahontas area in Cape Girardeau County when he decided to join in the fray in 1863. -
Local lore holds that the cemeteries between West High and West Breton streets in Potosi are haunted. What appears to be a single cemetery is three: the City Cemetery, the Old Masonic Cemetery, and the Potosi Presbyterian Cemetery. One of the most gruesome stories behind the tales of haunting involves the murder of five members of the Lapine family, all buried in the City Cemetery. -
Logging in the Bootheel began in earnest in the late 1800s. Several timber companies operated in the area, exemplified by the Wisconsin Lumber Company. The company operated on 60,000 acres initially purchased and leased starting in 1898 for logging by William Deering, founder of the Deering Harvester Company. -
Shady Grove Cemetery, recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is the final resting place of over 250 African Americans who lived in and near Cape Girardeau. Many were born enslaved but lived to see emancipation and life into the early 1900s. Among these was Charlotte (Gordon) (Giboney) Cook Holmes, whose remarkable story spanned more than 90 years. -
Academic Hall is the centerpiece of the Southeast Missouri State University campus. The construction of Academic after the destruction of Old Normal by fire did not happen without one unfortunate bump in the road to completion. -
The construction of the railroad system in Southeast Missouri by entrepreneur Louis Houck and others provided improved transportation. This improvement serves as the background for one tale of a teenage Wayne County couple from 1916. -
Prior to settlement by Europeans, the Missouri Ozarks had vast forests of shortleaf pine, estimated at 6.6 million acres. Pines grew well at drier sites on ridgetops and west and southwest-facing slopes in rocky or sandy soils. Early stories tell of forests so open that a rider could gallop through without striking a branch. -
The early days of the Civil War in Missouri in 1861 were chaotic. Union commanders and sympathizers lived in fear of secessionists in eastern Missouri, especially those under the command of Col. M. Jeff Thompson in Southeast Missouri. One of the steamers running on the Mississippi River at this time was often pressed into service in support of Union troop movements. -
One of the presidents of Southeast Missouri State has a permanent place in Missouri folklore. Willard D. Vandiver traditionally is credited with the nickname for Missouri—the Show Me State. -
Artists in the Midwest prior to 1932 had to travel long distances to participate in an art colony. These gatherings were seasonal events, usually providing artists with time at a site with natural beauty or interest at which they could receive education and feel a sense of community with other artists.
