History

Cape Girardeau's more-than-30-year-old concrete floodwall and earthen levees remain sound, a two-day inspection shows; the entire length of the Mississippi River floodwall was inspected by representatives from the Corps of Engineers, the local levee district and the city...

Former Southeast Missouri State University history department chairman Dr. Wayne H. Bowen, a scholar specializing in the life and times of President Harry Truman, said the 33rd president "agonized" over his decision to drop the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago this week...

Cape Girardeau voters overwhelmingly approved a transportation sales tax yesterday that will fund 20 road and bridge projects; voters approved the half-cent, five-year sales tax by a 1,638-vote margin; the victory is sweet for civic leaders who had been frustrated by back-to-back defeats of transportation tax measures in 1986 and 1987...

The first known epidemic of yellow fever in the United States was in the 1690s. Outbreaks would continue to occur in the southern United States until 1905. One hundred twenty years ago this month, Aug. 27, 1900, U.S. Army doctors James Carroll and Walter Reed discovered mosquitos were the carriers! Carroll infected himself with a mosquito bite. ...

Jackson Public Library and Riverside Regional Library in Jackson have shared patrons in a town of about 10,000 since the 1950s; yesterday, the Jackson Board of Aldermen, with support from both library boards, voted to change that; library board members want to combine forces and build a $1.5 million building on two acres in Jackson City Park; to do it, voters must approve an 18-cent tax levy on the November ballot...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Mo. -- Nearly eight decades after he was killed in the attack at Pearl Harbor that launched the U.S. into World War II, a Missouri man has been laid to rest next to his parents. KYTV-TV reported the remains of Navy Seaman 1st Class Orval Austin Tranbarger of Mountain View were buried Wednesday. The TV station said people lined highways and streets from Willow Springs to the cemetery in Mountain View to pay their respects...

The Jackson Municipal Band is observing the 75th anniversary of its founding under the name the Jackson Junior Band; the 50-member group will perform a 75th anniversary concert Thursday evening in the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse gazebo under the direction of Nick Leist...

The Rev. Raymond V. Epps is retiring as pastor of Shawnee Hills Baptist Church in Jackson, where he and his wife, Doris, have served since August 1988; a fellowship dinner is held in the evening at the church. The city of Jackson is building a third water tower; the concrete was poured three weeks ago for a 190-foot-high, 300,000-gallon water tank near the junction of Highway 61 and Interstate 55 on Old Appleton Road; it should be in operation by Oct. ...

MARBLE HILL, Mo. -- A handful of people in Bollinger County would like to revive a proposal to create a recreational lake in Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties; they have started a petition drive asking that voters have a chance to decide the fate of the lake; the lake project died in 1990, when the Bollinger County Commission refused to place the issue before voters; the project left lots of bad feelings in its wake...

A St. Louis firm will manufacture business jets in Ames, Iowa, rather than in Cape Girardeau because local investors there will contribute $2.4 million over the next three months to the project, company officials say; VisionAire Corp. had considered manufacturing its new single-engine, five-passenger business jet on a 40-acre site just north of the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport...

LOS ANGELES -- Wilford Brimley, who worked his way up from movie stunt rider to an indelible character actor who brought gruff charm, and sometimes menace, to a range of films including "Cocoon," "The Natural" and "The Firm," has died. He was 85. Brimley's manager, Lynda Bensky, said the actor died Saturday morning in a Utah hospital. He was on dialysis and had several medical ailments, she said...

Corrections Corporation of America will send a proposal packet to Cape Girardeau County Sheriff John Jordan tomorrow, taking another step closer to putting jails under private management in Southeast Missouri; Jordan, along with officials from Mississippi and Scott counties, is interested in the private jail system and perhaps building a regional facility housing inmates from the three counties...

PATTON, Mo. -- Fictitious names were added to the student rolls at Meadow Heights School District, likely generating more state money than the district was entitled to; the names of 17 fictitious students appear on the rolls for 1990-91, and 17 others appear on the rolls for 1991-92, a state school official found; those names could have brought in as much as $34,000 extra a year...

As crime stories go, this one has it all: secret messages passed via classified ads, a shootout with police, a getaway that eluded roadblocks and bystanders mistakenly arrested before the real culprit was discovered. It was the summer of 1930 and Harry E. Brown, 35, was getting desperate. Unable to find work, he hatched a plan to send extortion letters to three leading men in Cape Girardeau...

Today in History Today is Saturday, Aug. 1, the 214th day of 2020. There are 152 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 1, 1957, the United States and Canada announced they had agreed to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)...

Today is Friday, July 31, the 213th day of 2020. There are 153 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On July 31, 1777, during the Revolutionary War, the Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, was made a major-general in the American Continental Army...

Michael Sloan has accepted a call as minister of youth/missions and Gary Belcher the call as minister of music/senior adults at Lynwood Baptist Church; they join Mark Anderson, senior pastor, and Christopher Caywood, minister of education/administration, to complete the church staff...

Today in History Today is Thursday, July 30, the 212th day of 2020. There are 154 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On July 30, 1945, the Portland class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, having just delivered components of the atomic bomb to Tinian in the Mariana Islands, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine; only 317 out of nearly 1,200 men survived...

Russ Cochran, on the mend for the better part of three months, hopes the injury-plagued portion of his 1995 professional golf season will soon become a distant memory; the Paducah, Kentucky, native will be at the Cape Girardeau County Club on Monday to conduct a golf clinic for participants of the Cape Girardeau Noon Optimist Celebrity Golf Outing...

Today is Wednesday, July 29, the 211th day of 2020. There are 155 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On July 29, 1967, an accidental rocket launch on the deck of the supercarrier USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin resulted in a fire and explosions that killed 134 servicemen. (Among the survivors was future Arizona senator John McCain, a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who narrowly escaped with his life.)...

City officials say the cost of the Cape LaCroix Creek-Walker Branch Flood Control Project might approach $48 million, $16 million more than the Army Corps of Engineers' estimate when the city passed a half-cent sales tax to fund 25% of the project in 1988...

Today in History Today is Tuesday, July 28, the 210th day of 2020. There are 156 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On July 28, 1945, the U.S. Senate ratified the United Nations Charter by a vote of 89-2. On this date: In 1794, Maximilien Robespierre, a leading figure of the French Revolution, was sent to the guillotine...

Today in History Today is Monday, July 27, the 209th day of 2020. There are 157 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to adopt the first of three articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon, charging he had personally engaged in a course of conduct designed to obstruct justice in the Watergate case...

City officials say the Cape LaCroix Creek-Walker Branch Flood Control Project is more than half finished; the Army Corps of Engineers will open bids today for what city officials call phase II-B of the project; it includes construction of a concrete channel between Broadway and Kingsway, next to Burger King and Choctaw Park...

SELMA, Ala. -- The late U.S. Rep. John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, for the final time Sunday as remembrances continue for the civil rights icon. The bridge became a landmark in the fight for racial justice when Lewis and other civil rights marchers were beaten there 55 years ago on "Bloody Sunday," a key event that helped galvanize support for the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Lewis returned to Selma each March in commemoration...

NEW YORK -- Regis Philbin, the genial host who shared his life with television viewers over morning coffee for decades and helped himself and some fans strike it rich with the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," has died at 88. Philbin died of natural causes Friday night, just over a month before his 89th birthday, according to a statement from his family provided by spokesman Lewis Kay...

Today in History Today is Sunday, July 26, the 208th day of 2020. There are 158 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On July 26, 2002, the Republican-led House voted, 295-132, to create an enormous Homeland Security Department in the biggest government reorganization in decades...

The Board of Regents plans to appoint an interim president at Southeast Missouri State University until a permanent president is hired; the interim president won't be a candidate for the job and will be named before the current president, Dr. Kala Stroup, steps down at the end of August...

A reporter from The Southeast Missourian, October 1929, asked Cape Girardeau's leading citizens what the most outstanding community undertaking was since 1900. Without a doubt, it was the addition of the shoe factory. All agree, there was a need for more industry, more jobs, and weekly paychecks...

"Overwhelmed by elegance" is how one traveler described life aboard the new American Queen riverboat; for six hours Monday the sternwheeler's 406 passengers toured Cape Girardeau, while a few area residents were allowed to tour the boat. The City of Cape Girardeau will seek federal and state aid to buy flood-prone homes; but the City Council still must decide if it can afford its share of such a program before it makes a final decision; city officials don't know how much the city will have to spend, although estimates place the cost at $160,000 or more.. ...

Perhaps forgotten in the annals of history is a bold move Missouri’s only Oval Office occupant made 72 years ago this Sunday to improve race relations. On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman ordered the desegregation of the U.S. military. “(The order) was a hallmark of using executive power to enhance civil rights,” said Steve Hoffman, a history professor at Southeast Missouri State University...

Cape Girardeau underwent unprecedented growth and success in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Its location on the Mississippi and the arrival of a railroad were partly responsible, but the town also benefited from German immigration. As a group, Germans were literate, often well-educated and came possessed with an entrepreneurial spirit and technical skills. ...

On July 2, the Missouri Lottery Commission did away with a policy of no Sunday drawings, evoking smiles from vendors and frowns from ministers; the Sunday drawings are proving popular; Pick 3 sales have increased by about $900,000 a week since the extra drawing was added, and Show Me 5 sales by about $70,000...

It's finally OK to quench your thirst with a cool glass of water; the City of Cape Girardeau lifted a boil water order yesterday morning; water sample analysis tested negative for contaminants; previous residential and commercial water use restrictions were also lifted over the weekend; the prohibitions were the result of the city's water pumps breaking down Friday...

Sizzling hot temperatures are made even worse by the water problems Cape Girardeau is having; yesterday morning, the last of the city's three pumps, all damaged during the Mississippi River flooding, broke and a handful of water customers lost pressure; the breakdown led the city to issue a boil-water order; it also asked residents to conserve the water supply; emergency repairs to the pumps were finished last night, and today, workers are battling the heat to install a second pump...

JACKSON, Miss. -- A Confederate monument that's long been a divisive symbol at the University of Mississippi was removed Tuesday from a prominent spot on the Oxford campus, just two weeks after Mississippi surrendered the last state flag in the U.S. with the Confederate battle emblem...

Property near the 1200 block of North Mount Auburn Road, between Ford and Sons Funeral Home and Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., has been purchased as the site for a new Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce building; the property, eight-tenths of an acre with 150-foot frontage and 235 feet depth, was purchased from Walter J. "Doc" Ford...

Search “Cape Girardeau” on Google, and the one image that appears is the iconic Common Pleas courthouse on the hill, overlooking the Mississippi River. In 1853, traveling from New Orleans, members of the Penzel family were greeted by the building of a simpler courthouse. And now, five Penzel generations and some 166 years later, Phil Penzel and his company spearhead the design and construction of the renewed version, spanning the late 19th and 20th Centuries and now leaning into the 21st...

PATTON, Mo. -- Tom Waller resigned as superintendent of Meadow Heights School District on Wednesday, after the discovery he may have reported inflated enrollment figures to the state education department; much of a school district's state funding is based on those average daily attendance figures...

No one was injured yesterday afternoon during a two-alarm fire at an apartment building near Broadway and Fountain Street in Cape Girardeau; the fire started in a third-floor apartment in the southeast end of the building and was contained in that area; the three-story building at 115 N. Fountain St., was once part of the Idan-Ha Hotel; two other buildings that were part of the hotel were separately destroyed by fires in 1968 and 1989...

Cape Girardeau Board of Education members question superintendent Neyland Clark about school policies, budgets, personnel and other matters at its evening board meeting; Dr. Bob Fox, board president, sees the questioning as a positive sign that the new members are doing their job overseeing Cape Girardeau's public schools...

In 156 years of existance, St. James African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church of Cape Girardeau has had at least 51 pastors, many whose life stories still inspire. J. Frank McDonald, pastor from 1887-89, was distinguished for his relentless pursuit of education, a recurring theme of his biography in "Who's Who in the General Conference" (1912) and the "Centennial Encyclopedia of the AME Church" (1916)...

Perry C. Hazelwood, an eight-year veteran of law enforcement, has been honored for his actions during a shootout with a Laotian gang member in Jackson last fall; for his actions, Hazelwood is one of seven Missouri Highway Patrol officers to receive meritorious citations for performance beyond the call of duty during 1994; another officer from Troop E in Poplar Bluff, Cpl. Jeffrey L. Heath, received a work recognition award for leading the state in both felony and controlled-substance arrests...

The Rev. John M. Gregory was appointed pastor of Maple Avenue United Methodist Church at the recent Missouri East Annual Conference of United Methodist Churches; a native of St. Louis, Gregory served two years as associate pastor at New McKendree United Methodist Church in Jackson and has been pastor of Benton-Oran United Methodist Churches the past five years...

Less than 24 hours after a vote authorizing its removal, the Confederate monument in Ivers Square in downtown Cape Girardeau was boxed up Tuesday afternoon and made ready for an undetermined new venue. Scott Meyer, city manager, said “people walking by won’t have to see the (marker) anymore.”...

Anna Kangas is on the lookout for photos of the Cape Girardeau Common Pleas Courthouse through the years, and she’s requesting the public’s help. Kangas, who works for the city’s development services department and is the City Hall project manager, said the process to transform the Common Pleas Courthouse into Cape Girardeau’s new city hall is underway...

The guessing game is in full swing at Southeast Missouri State University, where the search for a new university president remains a big question and a hot topic of conversation; two of the school's top administrators -- Dr. Ken Dobbins, executive vice president, and Dr. Charles Kupchella, provost -- have been talked about among campus circles as possible candidates to succeed Dr. Kala Stroup...

The Cape Girardeau City Council voted Monday to accept most but not all of the June 23 recommendation from the city’s Historical Preservation Commission (HPC) regarding the fate of the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.) monument in Ivers Square...

WENTZVILLE, Mo. -- Jami Talley, 18, of Cape Girardeau was cold and wet and looking for refuge from the rain during the huge party Wednesday that followed his first Grateful Dead concert; he stood beneath a tent and watched as a wooden deck collapsed, injuring more than 100 fans at a campground west of St. Louis; chaos followed as people tried to remove debris and rescue people...

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in Rochester on the anniversary of one of his most famous speeches, delivered in that city in 1852. Police said the statue of Douglass was taken on Sunday from Maplewood Park, a site along the Underground Railroad where Douglass and Harriet Tubman helped shuttle slaves to freedom. Police were continuing their investigation Monday and no arrests had been made, according to a department spokesperson...