Out of the past 1/16/05

25 years ago: Jan. 16, 1980

Vowing the city council will act quickly, Mayor Paul Stehr yesterday instructed the city staff to identify blighted areas of Cape Girardeau to determine which might qualify for urban redevelopment funds; the city may qualify for some of the $75 million in unused Urban Development Action Grants.

Nine candidates will campaign for two seats on the Cape Girardeau City Council; the filing period for the March 4 election ended yesterday.

50 years ago: Jan. 16, 1955

A campaign is launched at services at Grace Methodist Church for $45,000 as the start of a building program that will culminate in the construction of a new church on property just off Broadway between Caruthers and Cordelia avenues.

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- Thad Snow, landowner, good roads advocate and author, died yesterday in a hospital at Cairo, Ill., of the effects of a stroke of paralysis; Snow, born in 1881 in Indiana, came to Mississippi County in 1910 and helped develop farming in the area.

75 years ago: Jan. 16, 1930

High water in the southern part of Southeast Missouri continues to keep three highways closed in the vicinity of Poplar Bluff; but highway engineers expect the water to recede within the next 24 hours.

Court judgments, which eventually may lead to creditors taking over the property, are being asked in proceedings filed in circuit court in Jackson against Mid-Continent Dairy Products Co., owner of the unfinished milk plant in Cape Girardeau, by seven creditors who furnished supplies or material for construction of the plant here.

100 years ago: Jan. 16, 1905

Rural free delivery mail routes Nos. 2 and 3 are established, making three rural routes for Cape Girardeau; they cover a wide territory, and in the future farmers will be in daily communication with the outside world; Route 1 takes in the area along the river north of town to Egypt Mills; Route 2 includes the area southwest of the city limits.

Manager Hugh Logan of the E. & S. Shirt factory is in a predicament; while his plant could employ 100 to 150 girls, and there are numerous girls willing to work, there is a severe scarcity of living accommodations in town.

-- Sharon K. Sanders