Out of the past 3/4/13

1988

With the federal government looking at turning the May Green Garden, at the northeast corner of Fountain and Themis streets, into a parking lot, a move is underway by the city's park board to save and restore the historic site.

A process to determine which vacant faculty slots will be filled at Southeast Missouri State University next fall is continuing after an administrative decision to reduce the teaching staff; the reductions are necessary because it appears the university's 1988-89 budget will be below the amount recommended by the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education, and enrollments have declined.

1963

Cape Girardeau's Federal Aviation Agency flight service station at the municipal airport is among 10 Kansas and Missouri stations that soon will receive new VHF-UHF direction-finding equipment to aid safety in the air.

Earl W. Stovall Jr., a Jackson Jaycee, was honored Saturday in Chillicothe, Mo., at the winter board meeting of the Missouri Jaycees; he received the Missouri distinguished service award for towns the size of Jackson.

1938

Merit E. Leming, head of a lumber manufacturing business that played a great part in the development of Southeast Missouri, a former mayor of Cape Girardeau and for nearly a half-century one of the community's leading citizens, dies unexpectedly at the family home, 311 N. Ellis St.; Leming was 10 days shy of his 76th birthday.

It is said that the turning point in Cape Girardeau's history came during the administration of the late M.E. Leming; it was during his two-year stint as mayor that the fire department became an adjunct to the city instead of a voluntary organization and street paving was started; Leming was mayor from 1909-10.

1913

The Frisco Railroad is having a well dug at Neelys Landing; it's now down to a depth of 400 feet, and still they are drilling in rock, proving that Neelys has a solid foundation.

Otto Cook, the Main Street tonsorial artist, leaves for Hot Springs, Ark., to spend a month with relatives and see a few baseball games between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Red Sox.

-- Sharon K. Sanders