Out of the past 4/18/06

25 years ago: April 18, 1981

Cape Girardeau's recently elected Charter Commission will hold its first official meeting Monday night, at which time its members will organize themselves into various committees and outline the steps that must be performed in order to draft the city's governing charter; members of the commission are Narvol A. Randol, Howard C. Tooke, Donald R. Strohmeyer, George H. Wrape, James P. Limbaugh, Paul Stehr, Thomas M. Meyer Jr., J. Hugh Logan, Vernon Fee, Edward Calvin, A.C. "Doc" Brase, Dr. Peter D. Hilty and Ralph L. Edwards.

Five new apartments are being included in refurbishing the ground floor of Fountain Plaza, formerly the Idan-Ha Hotel; the structure, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Roy Welker, will have a total of 37 apartments when construction work is completed in about two weeks.

50 years ago: April 18, 1956

A bill authorizing the General Services Administration to re-exchange the post office and Courthouse Park properties has passed the House of Representatives and is now under study by the Government Operations Committee of the Senate.

The Cape Girardeau Traffic Advisory Committee Tuesday suggested to the city council that an investigation be made of the relocation of the North Main Street bridge over Sloan's Creek to see that it meets traffic safety requirements.

75 years ago: April 18, 1931

Mrs. Ruth Kelso Renfrow's Shadybrook School of Cape Girardeau will be the subject of a special magazine story in Sunday's St. Louis Globe-Democrat; the school is conducted for the development of individual expression in children, purely by suggestion methods; the training is offered out-of-doors for six weeks every summer on the estate of Judge I.R. Kelso.

100 years ago: April 18, 1906

Reports are received in the afternoon of a devastating earthquake that destroyed San Francisco, Calif., this morning; thousands of residents are believed to have been killed.

In answer to the call of Martin Oberheide, who has taken up the task of getting a baseball team together, a number of local ball tossers met at the fairgrounds Sunday to hear Oberheide's scheme; he has circulated a petition among businessmen asking for a subscription of $1 a month; he wants to get enough signers to guarantee the salary of a battery, which is expected to be about $120 a month.

-- Sharon K. Sanders