Out of the past 6/12/09

25 years ago: June 12, 1984

Two of Cape Girardeau's older neighborhoods are receiving facelifts thanks to the Community Development block grant program; in the past two years, the city has received $957,151 for street paving and housing rehabilitation work in South Cape and the Red Star neighborhood.

While area Cub and Boy Scouts enjoy summer camping, Boy Scout officials in Cape Girardeau will be working toward a move from the old Scout headquarters in the H.-H. Building to a new building at 3000 Gordonville Road.

50 years ago: June 12, 1959

Monsignor Marion F. Forst, vicar general of the Diocese of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau and pastor of St. Mary's Cathedral, is one of five priests and 15 lay people accompanying Bishop Charles H. Helmsing on a pilgrimage to the shrines of Europe.

Workers from the State Highway Department join forces with those of a private contractor to repair damages to the Williams Creek bridge on U.S. 61; the iron railing on the bridge was sheared off on the north side when a large tractor-trailer truck crashed through it Wednesday night.

75 years ago: June 12, 1934

Workers begin to remodel the Broadway School building in preparation for expanded facilities there next school term; there will be no additions to the building, but some parts will be rearranged.

A high clay bank at the north side of the Harris Motor Co. property on lower Broadway is being moved to expand facilities for handling automobiles; the soil is so hard, small charges of dynamite are required to loosen it from the bank.

100 years ago: June 12, 1909

George Hunt, a 40-year-old house painter, is the latest victim of the "Bloody Bridge," the trestle spanning Sloan's Creek on the Frisco Railroad; Hunt is struck by the southbound Frisco passenger train at about 1:40 in the morning.

Efforts are being made to resolve a difference between the city of Cape Girardeau and the water company over the matter of water to be furnished for sewer-flushing purposes; the city desires a charge of 5 cents per thousand gallons, but the water people are set at 8 cents.

-- Sharon K. Sanders