Out of the past 10/17/04

25 years ago: Oct. 17, 1979

Speaking before a National Bank's hearing officer, the attorney representing First National Bank of Cape Girardeau contends the bank must move its main office from downtown Cape Girardeau to the western part of the city in order to expand necessary services and to stay competitive.

Lacey Street from Broadway west to Southeast Missouri Hospital will be closed approximately two months while construction of a tunnel connecting the hospital with its new Regional Cancer Treatment Center is underway.

50 years ago: Oct. 17, 1954

Utah Congressman Douglas R. Stringfellow, who spoke to Southeast Missouri teachers in a packed State College auditorium Friday, admitted yesterday in a tearful radio and television appearance in Salt Lake City that his story of wartime service for the CIA was a hoax engineered "by my own glib tongue."

A young couple of near Jackson -- Glenn Zeller and his fiancee, Mary Martin -- are abducted and robbed in Cape Girardeau by two masked assailants; they are bound and abandoned on Riverside Drive, the lonely gravel road at the foot of the hill behind the Missouri Utilities water plant near Cape Rock.

75 years ago: Oct. 17, 1929

City council, at a special morning meeting, authorizes City Commissioner M.L. Krueger to proceed at once with plans for receiving bids for the razing of 11 buildings in Fairground Park.

Extension of water mains on Albert Street for a distance of two blocks south from Henry Street, to the Koch Addition, is ordered by the city council.

100 years ago: Oct. 17, 1904

Residents gathered at the riverfront to welcome Russell Gardner, who is expected here to confer further in regard to locating his factory in Cape Girardeau, are disappointed when his boat passes by, on its way to Cairo, Ill.

L.T. Klostermann, proprietor of the Bee Store, has begun the construction of a large two-story building just south of his store on Spanish Street.

-- Sharon K. Sanders