Out of the past 4/5/13

1988

In a surprise about-face, the city council has decided against using special assessments to fund a trunk sewer project; City Manager J. Ronald Fischer announced the decision at the start of a public hearing last night on the proposed project to extend sewers to the northwest part of the city.

Attorney Al Spradling III and warehouse supervisor Hugh White are elected to the Cape Girardeau City Council, and Councilman David Barklage is re-elected in municipal balloting; Councilman Peter Hilty is a distant fourth, followed by Glen Kinder.

1963

Repairs are underway at the drainage structure and outlet pipes of the Capaha Park lagoon, where water has been leaking away; the work will seal water into the pond and hold it at a proper level, thereby stopping bank erosion.

The Sixth Annual Cape Girardeau Home Show, sponsored by the Jaycees, opens in the evening at the Arena Building with a crowd of between 800 and 1,000; the bulk of the attendance is expected Saturday and Sunday.

1938

Farmers in the Birds Point Floodway, as well as others along the Mississippi River, are breathing easier, as the first threatened flood of the spring definitely has ended; the Mississippi is falling all along its course in upper Southeast Missouri, and should start falling at New Madrid, Mo., within two days.

BENTON, Mo. -- The Scott County Court appoints Pauline Anderson, widow of Sheriff Wade G. Anderson who died March 27, to serve as sheriff until November, when a new sheriff will be elected to fill out his unexpired term.

1913

H.G. Dempsey, for many years a Water Street merchant, has sold his interest to his brother, Magnus Dempsey, and A.R. Zoelsmann, who will continue the business; the two brothers long had been partners.

After being the only line connecting the north with the south in the Mississippi River Valley for several days and profiting monetarily by transporting passengers and freight while other railroads were stymied by high water, the Frisco is out of commission; dynamite was used to tear up its tracks between Kewanee and Lilbourn, Mo.

-- Sharon K. Sanders