Out of the past 3/27/09

25 years ago: March 27, 1984

An exploding rear tire on a tractor-trailer blows out a plate glass window of Hahs Office Equipment, 701 Broadway, when the rig turns south onto Sprigg Street off William Street and the tire strikes a steel retaining post.

The sale of Colonial Federal Savings and Loan Association's Perryville, Mo., branch to First Federal Savings and Loan Association is announced jointly by S. David Patterson, president of Colonial, and Robert Suelmann, executive vice president of First Federal.

50 years ago: March 27, 1959

Dr. Joseph A. Serena, 86, eighth president of the State College, whose administration was from 1921 to 1933, dies at Lexington, Ky., where he had lived in recent years; his wife died last year.

Workers Monday will begin placing the new decorative baskets of red roses along the various business sections and main traffic areas in Cape Girardeau, if weather permits; 50 baskets will be mounted on utility poles by employees of the street and park departments.

75 years ago: March 27, 1934

Three new members, E.L. Markham, Fred A. Groves and C.D. Harris, were elected to the board of directors of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce at the board's meeting last night; they replace J.A. Rigdon, Alfred Hirsch and Thomas G. Harris.

The circus is coming early to Cape Girardeau this year; R.M. Harvey, general agent for Russell Bros. Circus, is here completing final arrangements for the show to open its 1934 season in Cape Girardeau on April 23; the three-ring circus will show at Fairground Park.

100 years ago: March 27, 1909

At 5 a.m., fire destroys a large flour mill, its elevator and warehouse, and badly damages three other business buildings, putting two families out in the street; Planters Mill at Independence and Main streets, as well as 3,000 bushels of wheat, 750 barrels of flour and about 350 sacks of bran and short are destroyed; buildings housing the City Laundry, Lomax's secondhand store and the F.W. Vogt tin shop are badly damaged.

The Appleton Brewery and Ice Co. of Appleton filed incorporation papers yesterday at Jackson; the incorporators were Theodore W. Meyer, Michael Bock, Ignatius Meyer and others.

— Sharon K. Sanders