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- Mayor Ford, Kiwanis light up Capaha Park's diamond (4/16/24)1
- The rise and fall of Capaha Park's wooden grandstand (4/9/24)
- Death of Judge Pat Dyer, prosecutor of the famous peonage case here in 1906 (4/2/24)2
- A third steamer Cape Girardeau was christened 100 years ago (3/26/24)
- Cape Girardeau christens its namesake (3/19/24)
- The humanist philosophy of Lester Mondale (3/12/24)1
- Cape Osteopathic Hospital opens its doors (3/5/24)
From the Morgue
The Southeast Missourian's resident historian Sharon K. Sanders blogs about interesting pieces of local history pulled from the newspaper's morgue -- the place where our old editions are kept.
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The Good Friday Earthquake remembered
Posted Thursday, March 27, 2014, at 12:00 AM
Fifty years ago today, while families in Cape Girardeau were concluding Holy Week and preparing for Easter, residents of Alaska and the region were reeling from the strongest earthquake ever recorded on the North American continent. The Good Friday Alaska quake on March 27, 1964, registered 8.4 on the Richter scale. By comparison, the 1811-12 New Madrid earthquake is estimated to have topped the scale at 8.0.
The Alaska earthquake was centered in Prince William Sound, but was felt as far as 800 miles away. Various websites put the total killed from the quake and resulting tsunami at around 115 and the property damage at more than $300 million.
The Missourian newspaper carried the news of the earthquake on the front page for days, including lists of names of area residents transplanted to Alaska.
On April 2, The Missourian published an eye-witness account of the earthquake provided by James Painter, the brother of a Jackson resident. Here's his story. 
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Thanks,
Sharon
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