Out of the past 2/5/12

25 years ago: Feb. 5, 1987

Britt Airways Inc. has been forced to halt commuter service from a hub in St. Louis that served Cape Girardeau and 12 other cities because the company was losing money on the operation.

Postal ledgers dating back to the days when mail was delivered by train and on horseback are going to be part of a permanent display at the River Heritage Museum, thanks to the Cape Girardeau post office; about 23 ledgers dating from 1870 to 1909 are being donated to the museum.

50 years ago: Feb. 5, 1962

A bulldozer rips through a gas line near a Highway 25 construction project north of Dexter, Mo., shortly before noon, cutting off service to 550 customers at Bloomfield, Mo.; every available Missouri Utilities man is being sent to Bloomfield to turn off gas furnaces, water heaters and stoves until repairs are made.

William C. Stone, 31, has been hired from a recent number of candidates to fill a vacancy in the Cape Girardeau Police Department; he is in Rolla, Mo., for a two-week police training course.

75 years ago: Feb. 5, 1937

Smoldering ruins of the Bartels Mercantile Co. building at Broadway and Ellis Street remain mute evidence of Cape Girardeau's greatest conflagration in many years, a fire that wiped out the business building with its store and three apartments and an office on the second floor, ignited seven other structures in the vicinity and for a time threatened an entire block; the damage is estimated from $85,000 to $90,000.

Having received an emergency call to supply half a million gallons of water for use at stricken Paducah, Ky., the city of Cape Girardeau and Missouri Utilities Co. are preparing to supply the drinking water; it will be shipped to Paducah by barge.

100 years ago: Feb. 5, 1912

The Knights of Columbus are now occupying their new home, having fitted up comfortably and cozily three rooms in the Houck Building at the corner of Main Street and Broadway; the Knights will open their new club rooms with a smoker this evening.

An addition is made to The Republicans zoo, when a bowl of goldfish is received from I. Ben Miller; the newspaper's menagerie consists of cats, chickens, bugs and now fish.

-- Sharon K. Sanders