Out of the past 1/31/05

25 years ago: Jan. 31, 1980

Cape Girardeau advocates of the Equal Rights Amendment, some of them criticizing Sen. John Dennis over the downfall of the amendment in the Missouri Legislature this year, state their determination to continue efforts toward adoption of the ERA.

A residential treatment facility opens this week in Cape Girardeau after many years of planning; the Gibson Center, 43 S. Lorimier St., recently obtained funding from the state Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse to begin a transition program to help recovering alcoholics re-enter the community.

50 years ago: Jan. 31, 1955

Floating ice in the Mississippi River, while heavy enough to cause tows making their way upstream to lose time, isn't sufficient to halt traffic until the boats and their barges reach the locks and dam at Alton, Ill.

Postal authorities are appealing to the public for information which will positively identify a man being held in Chicago on a John Doe warrant charging use of the mails to defraud; he is known to have operated in Delta, Jackson and Fornfelt, and possibly other towns in the district.

75 years ago: Jan. 31, 1930

The last of 55 condemnation suits in connection with the federal government's action to obtain land in Mississippi and New Madrid counties for construction of the set-back levee along the Mississippi River have been filed in federal court in Cape Girardeau; a total of $137,315 is now available for payment for the land.

The management of Southeast Missouri Hospital says an arrangement with Jewish Hospital in St. Louis has been made whereby it will have an affiliation with that institution to give advanced students from the school of nursing here six months training.

100 years ago: Jan. 31, 1905

The boatmen are having more than their usual amount of trouble this year; for months the low state of the river kept a majority of boats at the bank, and now ice has put a stop to all navigation from Cincinnati to Memphis.

A freight train which left Cape Girardeau around midnight is wrecked at the 91-mile post, about five miles north of Seventy-Six, Mo.; nine loaded cars and one empty are derailed and go into a deep ditch.

-- Sharon K. Sanders