Out of the past 5/6/11

25 years ago: May 6, 1986

The Cape Girardeau County Commission has placed a measure on the Aug. 5 primary election ballot calling for a countywide tax to pay for a county health department.

Authorities in Southern Illinois face several nervous hours when a tractor-trailer carrying about 105 cases of Class A explosives and primers runs off the side of Highway 146, two miles west of Jonesboro, Ill., after having its trailer damaged; police spend most of the afternoon removing explosives from the truck, which had just been loaded at Trojan Powder Co. in Wolf Lake, Ill.

50 years ago: May 6, 1961

St. Paul Lutheran Church at Jackson. (Missourian archives)

Heavy rain, accompanied by severe electrical storms and high wind, fell in the Cape Girardeau area last night, with many residents taking shelter in their basements or other places of safety; lightning struck an electric transformer in Jackson, plunging part of the city into darkness.

The final service having been held at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Jackson last Sunday, the congregation will begin worship in its parish hall tomorrow; furnishings from the 68-year-old church are being removed in preparation for its razing about May 10; construction of the new church will begin in June.

75 years ago: May 6, 1936

Rather than face a huge diamondback rattlesnake coiled on a county road near Nash, south of Cape Girardeau, M.O. Davis of Jackson, a tank oil truck driver for Sinclair Refining Co., drives his truck off the road, around the hissing reptile; Davis uses a rock to kill the 60-inch snake.

With 68 pupils of about 600 enrolled at Franklin School absent because of illness, an operetta, which had been postponed once, has finally been called off; most of the children who are ill have mumps.

100 years ago: May 6, 1911

The steamer Savannah, which passed upriver last evening, remained here long enough for a big bunch of tourists to take a round over town, some of them taking Kodak views and others getting "long cold ones."

The Jackson Homecomers Association has signed a contract with the Patterson Carnival Co. of Kansas City to play the week beginning Aug. 8; the reunion proper will be held Aug. 10 through 12; the association has also contracted with the Schuchert band of Cape Girardeau.

-- Sharon K. Sanders