Out of the past 2/9/06

25 years ago: Feb. 9, 1981

Cape Girardeau County Court has agreed to refund $50,000 to school districts and other local taxing entities which was held in an escrow account last year to help pay for reassessment; the money is being refunded because no local money was spent on reassessment last year.

NEW MADRID, Mo. -- Court orders or no, Wayne Cryts says he will "go after" soybeans he has stored in a bankrupt grain elevator here; Cryts' grain, and that of several other Bootheel farmers, has been the focus of a heated controversy over how to dispose of it.

50 years ago: Feb. 9, 1956

As scattered reports continue to come in about a large cat or cougar seen near Cape Girardeau, news is received of a similar animal and evidently a larger one in the Painton-Advance, Mo., area; it is described as possibly a mountain lion.

Construction work on a projected tank storage farm east of Illmo for Texas Eastern Transmission Corp. has halted, apparently because the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington has remanded the conversion question to the Federal Power Commission.

75 years ago: Feb. 9, 1931

Construction will begin tomorrow on a new laundry plant at 18-22 N. Sprigg St. in Cape Girardeau, to be erected by J.A. Rigdon, owner of the New Rigdon Laundry; the new plant, to be built adjacent to the present plant on the south, will practically double the size of the laundry.

Two Southeast Missouri towns are considering proposals for the establishment by utilities concerns of plants using butane gas; the proposals have been made to the city councils at Kennett and Charleston by the Mariclare Utilities Co. of Pittsburgh, Kan.; butane gas is a form of natural gas which has been put in a concentrated liquid form.

100 years ago: Feb. 9, 1906

At the regular meeting of the school board, it is decided to present the proposition at the spring election to build another ward school building in the north part of Cape Girardeau.

Members of the Commercial Club last night discussed a number of items, the most important being the report of the Southern Smelting and Manufacturing Co.; it was disclosed that, after conferring with railroad officials, the proposed site north of the city won't work, as the narrow right of way for the Frisco tracks makes it impossible to build a wharf on the river for the smelter; a location on the riverfront south of the Frisco yards may be considered.

-- Sharon K. Sanders