Out of the past 5/15/11

25 years ago: May 15, 1986

Up to 10 inches of rain and wind gusts of 50 miles per hour rip through sections of Cape Girardeau County late in the day, tearing up county roads and bridges, flooding Cape Girardeau's Town Plaza and damaging at least 33 homes in that region.

A night of severe weather ravages Cape Girardeau and Scott counties with tornadoes, hail and unrelenting rains claiming the lives of at least four people, two in Cape Girardeau and one each in Vanduser and Sikeston, Mo., which are hit by tornadoes.

50 years ago: May 15, 1961

CAIRO, Ill. -- Aided and abetted by rain that reached downpour proportions up the river, the Ohio River at Cairo continues to rise, with a stage of 54.4 feet, nearly one-half foot over the predicted crest.

John David Rigdon, a high school junior from Chaffee, Mo., last week won a major award at the National Science Fair-International in Kansas City; he will be honored at his school on Wednesday.

75 years ago: May 15, 1936

Plans for construction at a cost of $4,500,000 of four resettlement communities in Missouri are announced by the Federal Resettlement Administration; two of the communities would be built in Southeast Missouri -- one for 200 white families and the other for 100 black families.

After 18 years of idleness, the Appleton Distilling Co.'s distillery at Old Appleton will resume operations Monday; the building has been unused since pre-Prohibition days.

100 years ago: May 15, 1911

Gov. Herbert S. Hadley has sent word that he will visit Cape Girardeau on Decoration Day, May 30, and will deliver the dedicatory address at the unveiling of the monumental fountain in Courthouse Park that afternoon; in the evening he will address the public and students of the Normal School in the auditorium of Academic Hall.

Louis Valle of Jackson is in Cape Girardeau on business; he had resided at Dutchtown several years and was about to move to Gordonville, but could find no empty house; he sent his goods on to Jackson; he is importing bananas from Havana and selling them to retail merchants here and out in the country districts.

-- Sharon K. Sanders