Out of the past 1/24/12

25 years ago: Jan. 24, 1987

A Cape Girardeau company -- Ditech Corp. -- is taking its high-tech operations to Conway, Ark.; the first truck load of equipment left here yesterday.

Early response has been good for a "Parade of Flags" that will be on display near the war memorial in Cape County Park on Memorial Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day,; the first burial flag turned in as part of the display honored Robert L. Taylor Jr., who was killed in the Vietnam War.

50 years ago: Jan. 24, 1962

A Chicago banking firm -- Northern Trust Co. -- outbid eight other investors to buy the Cape Girardeau School District's $1.65 million in bonds for school construction; the bonds will pay the cost of a new junior high school on the high school tract, renovation of the present junior high, acquisition of ground for new schools and 14 added classrooms at Alma Schrader and Jefferson schools.

The early stages of construction on a new road that is expected to help hike attendance at Trail of Tears State Park this year is underway; men are clearing away trees in the right of way of what will be Highway 177, to run along the west border of the park.

75 years ago: Jan. 24, 1937

Stricken unexpectedly with thrombosis while in a St. Louis hospital recuperating from a fractured hip sustained in a fall Jan. 8, John Tlapek of St. Marys, president and chief stockholder in the Southeast Missouri Telephone Co., and a manufacturer, capitalist and business leader in the district, died last night; he was 90 years old.

Transportation is seriously hampered and telephone and electric service is disrupted by an ice storm that is more serious in the immediate Cape Girardeau district than a similar storm two weeks ago.

100 years ago: Jan. 24, 1912

W.H. Leavitt, the artist, is in Cape Girardeau and will have his large painting of the Lord's Supper on exhibition in the auditorium of Academic Hall at the Normal School until next Tuesday.

The pug-nose mule of Fred Kain's delivery wagon slips on the icy street on Broadway Hill and has to be picked up by his driver and a passer-by; the warmer weather is gradually clearing the streets of ice.

-- Sharon K. Sanders