Out of the past 3/18/11

25 years ago: March 18, 1986

The Cape Girardeau City Council calls the proliferation of tax proposals being considered by local governmental entities and special interest groups here "alarming"; proposals are being considered for funding a county health department, providing additional revenue for the library and financing street improvements.

More questions have been thrust into an impasse among county officials regarding the status of 11 employees of the sheriff's department and jail; Sheriff Dwight Thomas hasn't submitted a re-employment application to the county commission detailing who is or isn't a commissioned deputy among the personnel; the commission had asked him to do so March 10.

50 years ago: March 18, 1961

Douglas Wayne Thompson, 27, walked meekly from a farmhouse near Poplar Bluff, Mo., yesterday afternoon and, hands in the air, surrendered to face trial and a possible death sentence for the slaying of Cape Girardeau auxiliary police officer Herbert L. Goss.

EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Southeast Missouri State Indians' basketball winning streak comes to an end in Roberts Municipal Stadium, as they fall to Wittenberg of Ohio, 42-38, in NCAA college division finals.

75 years ago: March 18, 1936

Sale of the old Sturdivant Bank building, a three-story brick structure at the northwest corner of Main and Themis streets, to downtown merchant Maurice Bohnsack is approved by Judge Frank Kelly in circuit court; the building was construct in 1892 by Col. Robert Sturdivant, founder of the now defunct bank.

The interior of St. Vincent's Catholic Church on South Spanish Street is being redecorated, the ceiling and woodwork being painted in ivory, the side walls in buff, and the pillars and arches in brown; G.L. Goebel is doing the work.

100 years ago: March 18, 1911

All of Cape Girardeau is rejoicing at the news out of Warrensburg, Mo.; Clyde Harbison took first-place honors and Rush H. Limbaugh second in the Inter-Normal Oratorical Contest there last night.

Lead Belt Motor Co. has established a sales department in Cape Girardeau, where it is exhibiting Hudson and Hupmobile cars; Fred Groves and O.G. Edwards, managers of the company, have leased the ground floor room of the Elks Club building for a sales room.

-- Sharon K. Sanders