Out of the past 12/6/10

25 years ago: Dec. 6, 1985

A fire, started by a child playing with a cigarette lighter, guts a house at 723 S. Ranney Ave., early in the morning; the 2-year-old boy sets a mattress on fire, which quickly spreads to other rooms; no one is injured in the blaze.

Longtime businessman F.E. "Gene" Rhodes files as a candidate for Cape Girardeau mayor; also filing on the last day of the monthlong filing period are city council candidates Dennis Lorch and Michael Annis.

50 years ago: Dec. 6, 1960

Representatives of a uniform company are in Cape Girardeau measuring area leaders who have been selected by governor-elect John Dalton to be members of his honorary colonels staff for their blues and gold braid; honorary colonels are Bill Rose and Dr. Harold O. Grauel of Cape Girardeau; James A. Finch Jr., chairman of the University of Missouri Board of Curators, Dr. J.W. McPheeters of Poplar Bluff, Mo., and attorney Elvis Mooney of Bloomfield, Mo.

The council of Christ Evangelical and Reformed Church has accepted the resignation of the Rev. Robert H. McPherson as minister of that church effective Jan. 9, 1961.

75 years ago: Dec. 6, 1935

Denver Wright of St. Louis has resumed his wolf-hunting expedition in the Iron County hills, still feeling he will be successful in the search that started first in Perry County, then shifted to Cape Girardeau County and then moved to the Ozarks.

Foundation work has been started for the building of a 1 1/2-story, six-room stone residence for Mr. and Mrs. T.R. Ingram at the corner of Parkview and Missouri Avenue, just across from Fairground Park; J.A. Vasterling is the contractor.

100 years ago: Dec. 6, 1910

According to the junketing committee appointed by Gov. H.S. Hadley, the Cape Girardeau Normal School is the model institution of Missouri, so far as its management is concerned; last night, Sen. G.W. Humphrey and Reps. Hiram Lloyd and Robert Silver reported they were most agreeably surprised at what they found in inspecting the Normal School.

During last night's city council meeting, a deputy sheriff served a writ of injunction on Mayor M.E. Leming and council members, citing them to appear in Common Pleas Court in February in the matter of passing an ordinance granting a franchise to the Frisco Railroad.

-- Sharon K. Sanders