Out of the past 1/4/08

25 years ago: Jan. 4, 1983

Airplanes parked this winter at the municipal airport will share part of their ramp with some nonflying vehicles; the Cape Girardeau City Council yesterday authorized a lease agreement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which will permit that agency to store as many as 150 mobile homes at the airport; the mobile homes will be used for temporary housing by residents of a 30-county area affected by recent flooding.

Fire that destroyed a building at 418 Broadway on Saturday night apparently was a result of an electrical problem; the building, owned by Mickey Palmer, contained apartments upstairs and a car repair garage in the rear.

50 years ago: Jan. 4, 1958

Bids for the next section of the Main Street Levee Improvement District floodwall, extending from the north terminus of the present wall at Merriwether Street to a point near the foot of Bellevue Street, will be received Jan. 31.

Alvin F. Klaus, former sheriff of Cape Girardeau County, files as a candidate on the Republican ticket for the position of county court judge of the first district.

75 years ago: Jan. 4, 1933

The identities of the two gunmen slain yesterday in a pistol battle with Cape Girardeau police remain a mystery, although hundreds of people, including a number of officers from two states, have viewed the bodies; unless identification is established, the bodies will be buried later today in the pauper's field at Fairmount Cemetery.

Mrs. W.C. Russell of Cape Girardeau, widow of the late lawyer, has been elected primary teacher at May Greene School; she succeeds Louise Norvell, who resigned to be married.

100 years ago: Jan. 4, 1908

The most important matter coming before yesterday's initial meeting of the board of supervisors of the Little River Drainage District in Cape Girardeau was the appointment of an engineer, who will direct the preliminary work of surveys; Otto L. Kochtitzky was named for the responsible position.

W.B. Ragsdale of Quality Corner has gone to Paris, Mo., where he will visit his parents and about 600 relatives; he is related to most every family in Monroe County.

-- Sharon K. Sanders