cape rock park

What's there to dislike? It is not far from downtown and the casino. You park, you look at the river from a very nice vantage point, you leave.

A wonderful way to spend the day enjoying the outdoors and the Mississippi river just a good time in nature.

Admittedly, I grew up in Cape and this is one of the places I go most every time I'm in town. It's not really that great of a park, but it is an iconic view of the Mississippi River and shows you how CAPE Girardeau got its name as it is located on a point of land jutting out into the river.

The plus about this park is it overlooks the Mississippi River and provides a great view. Other than that there is a loop around a rock for cars to leave the park. Nothing to really do or entertain kids.

This is a historic spot, and has great view of a turn in the Mississippi. Fun to watch the boats pushing huge loaded barges up and around the bend. On a nice day, a good picnic place.Nothing much else to say other than this is the spot that Cape Girardeau got it start from as well as its name.

In 1832, the most important American poet of the first half of the 19th century, William Cullen Bryant, took a leave from his job as editor of the New York Evening Post in order to visit his brother and see the West. Cape Girardeau was the southwesternmost point of his trip. But Bryant was not just a poet, rising editor of the most respected news paper of its time, and a founder of the Republican Party. For seven years prior to his Western trip, he had also been one of the more important pioneers in American short fiction before the debuts of Poe and Hawthorne. On seeing Cape Rock (which gave the town its name) he found inspiration for a story, "The Skeleton's Cave." That story exemplifies the naturalist approach to fiction -- which literary history attributes to Emile Zola's Le Roman experimental, written in 1880! Bryant's story may be the first and most precise expression of that approach to fiction as a "laboratory" studying human behavior. The story and the commentary may be read in The Complete Stories of William Cullen Bryant," to be published in April, 2014. (Distributor: University Press of New England)(Unfortunately, the Cape Rock promontory that inspired the story was destroyed in the building of a railroad.)

WE went to the Park early one morning, and watched the sun come up over the Mississippi River. Nice.

This is absolutely a beautiful stop along the Mississippi River to hang out and get a great, peaceful view. It's not a big tourist attraction, but has special meaning to most of the locals. If the river is low, you can walk out on the rocks or sandy areas and explore.

Great view. But that is all that is there-a view of the MIssissippi.