river trade steamboats trading posts bridges murals and historic sites
Cape Girardeau is named after Jean Baptiste de Girardot, who established a trading post in the area around 1733. As early as 1765, a bend in the Mississippi River, had been referred to as Cape Girardot or Girardeau. In 1799, American settlers founded the first English school west of the Mississippi at a landmark called Mount Tabor, named by the settlers for the Biblical Mount Tabor.