Out of the past 11/13/05

25 years ago: Nov. 13, 1980

Shoot high and take what the legislature offers was the advice several Southeast Missouri legislators had Wednesday for Southeast Missouri State University president Bill Stacy, when he asked them how much money the school should request from the state for its upcoming fiscal year budget.

The new Marquette Co. cement plant, which will have triple the capacity of the old facility while using one-third the energy of some plants, is about 95 percent complete; the $103 million complex is scheduled to begin production early in 1981.

50 years ago: Nov. 13, 1955

Two men are hospitalized when their automobile goes out of control on Highway 74 at Dutchtown, smashes into a power pole, snapping it and causing a two-hour disruption of electric service to residents at Dutchtown and Gordonville.

Indian summer returns as the thermometer shoots to 82 degrees, the highest temperature on record for Cape Girardeau so late in the year; the balmy air, along with intermittent sunshine that plays from behind scattered clouds, brings hundreds out of doors; fishing equipment, put away for the year, makes an appearance; duck and goose hunters throw up their hands in despair.

75 years ago: Nov. 13, 1930

The "worthy wanderer" will soon be able to secure at least one night's lodging free of charge if the plans of Capt. Wilbur Powell of the local Salvation Army are fruitful; Powell is fitting out the basement of the Army barracks, 111 Themis St., as a "flop house" to serve as a temporary shelter for transients.

Two of the youths who choked a nurse into submission Sunday night at a reformatory at Grand Rapids, Mich., in order to make their escape from the prison, are arrested in Cape Girardeau by police in an automobile stolen from a village near the Michigan city.

100 years ago: Nov. 13, 1905

At about 1 p.m., a terrific crash startles all the workers in the Frisco Railroad yards; the immense water tank standing on a tall framework at the north end of the main shop collapses, and water and woodwork falls upon the roof of the shops with a deafening crash; that end of the shop collapses, the walls falling out and the roof in.

Pedestrians down Broadway early yesterday morning were surprised to see a lot of stone slabs on the Presbyterian Church yard at the northeast corner of the church; some time early that morning, the stone coping on the north side of the church's east gable slid off.

-- Sharon K. Sanders