Out of the past 1/21/12

25 years ago: Jan. 21, 1987

More than five years after the city of Cape Girardeau purchased an 82-acre site near Dutchtown for use as a city landfill, city officials are now seeking bids for the sale of the farmland which has never been developed as a landfill.

The Jackson Board of Aldermen has set a Feb. 16 date for a public hearing for the friendly annexation of 47.878 acres recently purchased by the Jackson Industrial Development Company as an expansion of its industrial park program.

50 years ago: Jan. 21, 1962

Ned Walsh, a junior at Southeast Missouri State College, has been chosen by the Baptist Student Union of Missouri to serve as a missionary this summer in Jordan; until he began serving recently as a student pastor in the Charleston (Mo.) Association, Walsh was a member of the First Baptist Church at Cape Girardeau.

The annual solemn novena in honor of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal begins in the evening at St. Vincent's Catholic Church.

75 years ago: Jan. 21, 1937

SIKESTON, Mo. -- One hundred WPA workers in Mississippi County are sent to Cypress, Mo., 14 miles north of New Madrid, Mo., on the Mississippi River to repair a levee; the levee was built through swamp land and about a 400-foot section sank several feet during the past two years.

Charles F. Fluhrer, 58 years old, a prominent Cape Girardeau civic worker and property owner, dies at a local hospital of pneumonia; he became ill a week ago while working at the Roth Tobacco Co. factory, of which he had been in charge since E.W. Flentge became ill Nov. 15; formerly part owner of Roth, in recent years he has devoted his time to looking after his extensive property interests here and to Southeast Missouri Hospital, which he helped establish.

100 years ago: Jan. 21, 1912

A government barge on the Mississippi River, one of the three tied up in South Cape Girardeau, breaks free from its moorings, the ice carrying it against the ferry boat Gladys; the latter is considerably damaged; quick action by Roy James, ferry captain, and a gang of men prevents the vessel from being destroyed; the ice surrounding the boat is dynamited and cleared away.

Charles Kuss, the well-known cattle buyer, dies from the effects of a fall down the cellar steps at the Nebel home on Bloomfield Road yesterday; he is survived by a wife and two children.

-- Sharon K. Sanders