CAPE GIRARDEAU, a city of Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, U.S.A., on the bluffs of the Mississippi river, 131m. S.S.E. of St. Louis. It is on Federal highway 61, and is served by the Frisco railway, river steamboats and barges and a ferry to Thebes, Illinois. In 1900 the population was 4,815; in 1920, 10,252 (9o% native white) ; and in 193o was 16,227 by the Federal census. There are extensive hardwood forests in the neighbour hood, and deposits of marble, lime, sandstone, iron, silica and pure white clay. The leading manufactures are shoes, cement and lum ber products, and the total factory output in 1925 was valued at $15,526,626. The Southeast Missouri State Teachers' college, es tablished as a normal school in 1873, occupies massive buildings of native limestone in a picturesque setting high above the river. It has a fine collection of local Indian relics, assembled and pre sented by Thomas Beckwith (d. 1913) of Charleston, Missouri. Cape Girardeau was founded in 1793 by Louis Lorimier, a French Canadian, and was named after another early trader. Under Span ish dominion it was an important military and trading post, and it was the site of a fort in the Civil War. The city was incorporated in 1843. It has a commission form of government.