Out of the past 2/8/05

25 years ago: Feb. 8, 1980

A major snowstorm closes schools, including Southeast Missouri State University, throughout Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois, and forecasters predict as much as 8 inches could pile up before the snow ends late tonight or early tomorrow.

The creation of a manmade lake on the county farm property south of U.S. 61 just east of Memorial Park was proposed to the county court yesterday by A.C. "Doc" Brase, chairman of the County Park Board.

50 years ago: Feb. 8, 1955

The town of Delta is no longer classified as a city; the county court yesterday granted a petition, representing two-thirds of the voters, to return Delta's status to "village."

Cape Girardeau's new nine-hole, green grass golf course, the only one in this section of the state, will be ready for play in May, members of the Jaycees, who built the layout on Perryville Road, told the Rotary Club yesterday.

75 years ago: Feb. 8, 1930

Virtually each one of the 400 employees of the Marquette Cement Mfg. Co. in Cape Girardeau participated in a street parade last night; the parade celebrated the plant's two-year record without a lost-time accident.

A site three miles north of Sikeston, Mo., on U.S. 61 has been selected as a location for an agricultural experiment station by the Missouri college of agriculture; every crop grown in Southeast Missouri will be cultivated on the experiment plot.

100 years ago: Feb. 8, 1905

Another new lumber yard will soon be added to the list now supplying the big boom in construction which Cape Girardeau is enjoying; its name will be J.J. Ostby & Co., and it will be on Ellis Street near Broadway; Ostby arrived here recently from Pine Bluff, Ark.

The St. Louis court of appeals has sustained a lower court decision in the case of Louis Houck and wife against the Cape Girardeau Waterworks and Electric Light Co.; the court found that the local company couldn't be held responsible for a lack of water pressure that permitted a house belonging to the plaintiffs to be destroyed; the case involved Houck's hotel in Mill Town that burned Oct. 22, 1903.

-- Sharon K. Sanders