Out of the past 2/27/05

25 years ago: Feb. 27, 1980

Ground breaking for the new Trinity Lutheran Church will be held Sunday morning on the church site at the corner of Frederick and Themis streets, weather permitting.

A 21-member task force is elected within the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce to look into a charter form of government for the city; chairman of the task force is Rush H. Limbaugh, a lawyer.

50 years ago: Feb. 27, 1955

Bishop Homer A. Tomlinson of New York City speaks at three services at Bend Road Church of God; Tomlinson is overseer of all Churches of God; preachers from St. Louis, Kansas City and Fulton in Missouri and Marion, Ill., are present for the services.

Julia Sanford Vandivort, member of an early Cape Girardeau County family and the first woman to serve on the Cape Girardeau Board of Education, dies at her home at age 77; she is survived by her husband, Clyde A. Vandivort, and seven children.

75 years ago: Feb. 27, 1930

Over a wide area an intensive manhunt is under way for four bandits who last night held up an filling station in Cape Girardeau, abducted two men, robbed a roadside filling station in Bollinger County and fled after shooting the owner of the latter place when they believed he sought to turn in an alarm.

The Missouri Utilities Co. will build between 18 and 20 miles of line in Dunklin County this year to extend electrical service to rural areas of that county.

100 years ago: Feb. 27, 1905

Last night and today, Murrel Walker and wife of Muscatine, Iowa, were made homeless; they came to Cape Girardeau in a houseboat last fall and remained all winter; yesterday, after nearly all the ice had passed out of the bay, a piece hanging to the sandbar broke and swung around, hitting the houseboat; in two minutes it was on the bottom of the river; Walker saved all his effects, and the couple is now living in a tent on the levee.

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Ignatius Meyer Sr., and William B. Wucher Jr., have bought the old brewery and fixtures of the old Ludwig brewery at Appleton, Mo., from Mathias Volz.

-- Sharon K. Sanders