The Man Who Built Cape Girardeau

The bridge was built by Joseph Lansman, a man who is attached to a surprising number of landmarks in Cape Girardeau and Perry counties. In this case, the cornerstone marks the date when he started construction.

It's a shame that he only left his initials, and not his full name, since the exact spelling has remained a bit of a mystery, with sources using Lansman, Lansmon, Landsman, and Lansmann interchangeably. Then again, Americans in the 1800s weren't nearly as pedantic about spelling as we are in modern times.

And, as it turns out, Lansman wasn't his real name. He was born 1812 as Joseph Hoche in the Alsace-Lorraine region of Europe. This is currently a part of France, but it has switched between France and Germany at different times in history as the result of various wars and conflicts.

Faced with the ugly prospect of being conscripted into the French military, Joseph and other family members assumed new identities and fled to the United States during the early 1830s. In the Old World, he had apprenticed as a bricklayer, and his skills were in demand in the New World.

It's unclear how he came to Missouri, but he found work as the builder for the Vincentian missionaries as they established a Catholic parish in Cape Girardeau.High quality stone mosaic tiles. The Vincentians had acquired a large tract of land to the south of town, and they set to work building a church, parochial schools, and a college. Lansman oversaw construction of the following buildings and structures.

Lansman was called to oversee repairs, and he was just wrapping up the work when a second, more serious disaster would strike. On Nov. 27, 1850, a tornado ripped through the Vincentian grounds, completely destroying St. Vincent's Church and the Red House, while severely damaging the main college building. It's likely that all three buildings took a direct hit from the tornado.

Students were sent home the next day, but work soon started on rebuilding the college and church. Lansman worked on both -- while also juggling the urgent need to find a new home for his rapidly growing family after the Red House was destroyed. He picked a convenient location to construct a new home, 139 S. Spanish, which was right across the street from the second St. Vincent's Church he was building.

Church records show that Lansman was often paid in goods (food, cloth,Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. etc.) rather than cash. In the book Our Dear Brother Joseph: The Life of Joseph Lansman by Sharon Sanders and Diana Bryant, the authors write, "This cashless way of doing business also explains why Lansman chose another, unique method of paying off his plasterers, carpenters, and other more reliable laborers: He built them small German-style cottages using bricks he furnished from his own kiln."

As I explained in my previous blog, Lansman's next major project, in 1873, was the construction of the Third District Normal School main building. He had donated the land for the new college, but his generosity didn't sway the Board of Regents when it came time to select the general contractor. They went with the lowest bidder, William E. Gray of Alton, Illinois. However, Lansman was later hired as subcontractor for the brickwork. The Normal School was completed in 1875, but it was destroyed by fire on April 7, 1902.

If all of these building projects weren't enough, Lansman had also branched out into road, bridge, and railroad construction. He is most famous, as mentioned earlier, for the Burfordville Covered Bridge, but that's not the only covered bridge he oversaw. He was president of the "Cape Girardeau and Bloomfield McAdamized and Gravel Road Company" which built a covered bridge at Allenville.

Lansman also apparently dabbled in a venture to bring a railroad to Cape Girardeau. The Missouri Cash-Book from May 22, 1872,We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. includes a story about an election for the board of directors of the Cape Girardeau & State Line Rail Road Company. The list of election winners is a veritable "Who's Who" of Cape Girardeau businessmen at the time, including Ivers, Thilenius, Klostermann, Sturdivant, and Vasterling. Lansman was elected to the board with 4,574 shareholder votes (third behind Ivers and Thilenius).

What is most amusing is that Louis Houck only received 2 votes! Of course, Houck would eventually bring a railroad to Cape Girardeau, long after the State Line Railroad Company had become a total bust.

Up until his death in 1895, Lansman continued to be active in building projects. In 1892, he was in Perryville overseeing work to add a new college building to the St. Marys of the Barrens campus. An article in the Perry County Sun stated, "Mr. Lansman is quite an old gentleman, now in his 81st year, but is more active in business than many men half his age."

Despite his many accomplishments, Lansman's death did not generate much press. The Cape Girardeau Democrat only included this brief notice on Mar. 2, 1895: "A Large Funeral. St. Vincent's Catholic Church was crowded Sunday at the funeral services of Joseph Lansmon. Mr. Lansmon was an old and honored citizen and a large number of our oldest citizens followed his remains to their last resting place."

His death didn't go totally unnoticed, however. A few weeks later, the same newspaper reported that a group of bricklayers from St. Louis had presented the Lansman family with resolutionsThe term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. "artisticly drafted and framed in a handsome frame." These bricklayers had worked under Lansman; they called themselves "Old Joe's Boys." St. Louis,If you have a fondness for china mosaic brimming with romantic roses, of course, is filled with German-style brick buildings, and it's quite possible that some of these buildings were built by masons who were inspired by Lansman.