When admiring Cape Girardeau’s many historic buildings, it’s easy to overlook what’s right above your head. But roofs play a key role not only in preserving that history – protecting structures from all the elements Mother Nature can throw at them – but often defining the very architectural character that makes those buildings so remarkable. In honor of #NationalRoofOverYourHead Day, Southeast Missouri State University’s Dr. Steven Hoffman takes us on a tour of some of the area’s most admirable rooftops.

Probably the most iconic roofline in Cape Girardeau is the Common Pleas Courthouse. The building’s rooftop with its soaring cupula grandly looks out over the Mississippi River and our historic downtown. The gable-on-hip roof of the courthouse wings and the triangular pediment of the colonnaded portico draw the eye upward to the cupula, giving this classical revival building the prominence in the city’s skyline it so richly deserves.

One of the most interesting rooftops in our downtown sits atop the former Hecht’s building at 107 N. Main Street. While most commercial buildings have flat roofs with decorative cornices, the main portion of the Hecht’s building presents with a steeply pitched pyramid roof with a centered dormer accentuating its verticality. The adjoining storefront building has a beautiful side gabled roof with parapets and decorative exposed rafters and terracotta tiles, perfectly accenting its Spanish Colonial Revival style.

One of my favorite modern rooftops has to the one on the Rust Media Center at 325 Broadway. The building’s mid-century modern stylings are perfectly expressed in the undulating, wavy, corrugated cast cement roof of this former bank building. This roofline profile is truly distinctive in the region and makes a delightful and fun statement that there truly is no place like Cape Girardeau’s downtown.

No tour of the best rooftops in the city would be complete without a stop at the Marquette Tower at 338 Broadway. The Marquette’s roofline is accentuated by beautiful terracotta and wrought iron detailing and the two towers dramatize the building’s Spanish Colonial Revival style. But what makes the Marquette rooftop so outstanding is the rooftop terrace at the Top of the Marq which gives everyone the opportunity to enjoy the rooftop experience up close and personal and provides great views of the city as well.

Closing out our tour of Cape Girardeau’s rooftops bring us to Academic Hall at Southeast Missouri State University. As beautiful as the triangular pediments on the wings and pedimented portico forming the main entrance are, it is the restored Neoclassical Revival dome that helps mark this building as one of the most significant and important buildings in the region. If you ever get a chance to take a dome tour at the university, you will not be disappointed. Not only are the views through the portal windows outstanding, but you get to see the world from the inside of one of the most admirable and iconic rooftops in Cape Girardeau.

Dr. Steven Hoffman is a profession of history and anthropology at Southeast Missouri State University, and coordinator of the Historic Preservation Program. 

Photos: provided by Dr. Steven Hoffman