Out of the past 1/17/05

25 years ago: Jan. 17, 1980

Three daily nonstop flights from Cape Girardeau to St. Louis, Mo., will be added as of Feb. 1 by Air Illinois; the new schedule will give Cape Girardeau the only nonstop service to and from St. Louis.

A group headed by Vernon H. Landgraf and Dr. Milton S. Shoss of Cape Girardeau, Stan Musial, former St. Louis Cardinal baseball star, and others has applied for a state charter to establish a new bank here; it would be called the Bank of Cape Girardeau.

50 years ago: Jan. 17, 1955

An appropriation of $750,000 for Mississippi River flood-control work at Cape Girardeau is recommended in the federal budget, submitted to Congress by President Eisenhower; it is presumed this would be for a part or all of the riverfront section starting at Sloan's Creek and running to the traffic bridge.

The first session of the Cape Girardeau police training school opens with a welcome by chief Kenneth Cruse; local police are joined in the school by a number of officers from the surrounding towns.

75 years ago: Jan. 17, 1930

Streets made slippery by snow offer a serious menace to traffic in Cape Girardeau as the brunt of a severe Midwest blizzard strikes this district in all its fury in the afternoon; highways are dangerous, and railroad tracks north of here near St. Louis are covered with 6 inches of snow.

Crews work in subfreezing temperature to strengthen a wide levee front in Dunklin County against the rising St. Francis River.

100 years ago: Jan. 17, 1905

M.E. Leming purchases a 25-acre tract near the new box factory from E.S. Brown; he intends to divide the tract and sell off smaller parcels.

Announcement is made of the dissolution of the firm of John St. Avit & Son, which for years has been doing an immense grocery and allied business at the corner of Spanish and Independence streets; John St. Avit Sr. retires from the firm, and Eugene St. Avit takes charge alone.

-- Sharon K. Sanders