Out of the past 4/26/10

25 years ago: April 26, 1985

A morning fire damages the food-preparation area of the Burger King restaurant at 2346 Broadway; when firefighters arrive, they find flames shooting several feet out of a duct on the roof; no one is injured and restaurant officials hope to reopen later in the day.

Jim Vangilder of Cape Girardeau spent 4 1/2 years building a single-engine biplane; earlier this month, he flew his creation for the first time from the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport.

50 years ago: April 26, 1960

Formal dedication of the Cape Girardeau's new airport facilities, with Attorney General John Dalton as the principal speaker, is set for May 29; Rush Limbaugh Jr., secretary of the Municipal Airport Board, says preliminary plans call for an air show with both Air Force and Navy planes participating, and for parachute jumping by members of a St. Louis club.

Construction has been completed on an 18-acre lake west of Cape Girardeau on the Giboney Houck property, just south of the Benton Hill Road; the lake, to be used as a recreational site, and as a flood control and erosion control unit, was designed by the Soils Conservation Service.

75 years ago: April 26, 1935

Hundreds of high school pupils from throughout Southeast Missouri are converging on the Teachers College to take part in the 30th annual series of academic and athletic contests; a special train bring 131 pupils and teachers from Crystal City, Mo.

A building at 38 N. Main St., occupied by the Fred Barks Cafe and owned by Mrs. Bess Kilgore Tibbs, is being remodeled; a new front is being constructed and the interior expanded to permit quarters for a larger restaurant and kitchen.

100 years ago: April 26, 1910

Capt. Harry L. Bridges yesterday celebrated his 21st anniversary in the employ of Uncle Sam as a railway mail clerk; Bridges began his career April 25, 1889, at age 17, when he made his first trip on the Missouri Pacific fast mail between St. Louis and Kansas City.

The gang of workers who are putting up new telegraph poles for the Frisco Railroad from Gulf Junction to Cape Girardeau have reached the freight yards in the south end of town.

-- Sharon K. Sanders