Out of the past 5/7/12

25 years ago: May 7, 1987

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- State Sen. Danny Staples says he is looking at several options for 1988, but has decided against challenging 8th District Rep. Bill Emerson for his seat; the Eminence, Mo., Democrat had been mentioned as a possible foe for the four-term congressman.

Cathy Crow, 15, a sophomore at Central High School, has been given the Gold Award, the highest recognition which can be earned in Girl Scouting; she is the daughter of Janice Crow and Richard Crow.

50 years ago: May 7, 1962

A single-day record for the most visitors at Trail of Tears State Park was set yesterday during the first annual Dogwood Tour of the park; 913 cars carried an estimated 4,336 people through the park.

The secretary of the U.S. Army, Elvis J. Stahr Jr., and other high ranking Army and Mississippi River officials are conducting a public hearing in Cairo, Ill., aboard the Army steamer Mississippi; the officials are inspecting river installations and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' work from St. Louis to New Orleans, holding public hearings along the way.

75 years ago: May 7, 1937

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- The crisis is believed past as 200 levee workers continue to hold a section of new levee against a menacing Mississippi River flood threatening a second inundation of the Birds Point-New Madrid spillway; although the river is still rising slowly, workers have raised the levee, circling the gap in the frontline levee at Wolf Island, to a point above the anticipated crest.

Bernard G. "Barney" Kraft, 68, a native and lifelong resident of Cape Girardeau and fire chief during the transition from the hose cart to the horse-drawn fire wagon and thence to the first motorized unit, died last night at his home.

100 years ago: May 7, 1912

R.M. Brown has bought the refreshment stand between the Bergmann-Bartels store and the Brinkopf furniture store on Broadway and is fixing the place up in fine style.

Henry Puls, the Jackson postmaster, comes over to Cape Girardeau and buys an Overland "59" roadster from the Southeast Missouri Motor Car Co.; he learns to run it in short order and then drives himself home.

-- Sharon K. Sanders