Out of the past 6/20/06

25 years ago: June 20, 1981

Large crowds thronged along the Cape Girardeau riverfront yesterday and again today for the annual Riverfest celebration, enjoying food, crafts, music and a variety of other entertainment programs.

The Otahki Girl Scout Council has purchased a 43-acre camping site on Oriole Road, four miles north of the Cape Gir-ardeau Municipal Golf Course; the tract is being prepared for primitive camping use this summer.

50 years ago: June 20, 1956

The Cape Girardeau County Board of Education, meeting last night, decided to ask the State Department of Education for clarifying information on some legal questions before proceeding with the adoption of a new reorganization plan for school districts in Cape Girardeau County.

WASHINGTON -- President Eisenhower signs legislation that will return the Common Pleas Courthouse and public library to Cape Girardeau and give the federal government the federal building on Broadway; planning to build a new post office and court building in Cape Girardeau, the government in 1947 traded the present federal building and site for the city's public library and the 100-year-old courthouse and site.

75 years ago: June 20, 1931

Six hundred bottles of reputed Canadian beer, valued at $300, are seized, and a St. Louis man, who admits he planned to retail the product at 50 cents a bottle in the Cape Girardeau area, is arrested in the morning when county officers and police seize a Ford coupe automobile on West Broadway in Cape Girardeau; an accident in which the automobile crashed into a farm wagon on Highway 61, three miles west of the city, results in the arrest.

Engineer Dennis Scivally says work on the first section of the outer drive, extending from North Sprigg Street over to the lower Bend Road, a distance of nearly 1 1/2 miles, will start Monday.

100 years ago: June 20, 1906

Professor Carter, principal of the Doniphan, Mo., public schools, is chosen to head the Cape Girardeau Public Schools system by the board of education; in other action, the board reviewed plans submitted by five architects for the new ward school building; the board turns the plans over to the building committee for its recommendations.

French's New Sensation, the old reliable boat show, gives a performance in the evening at the waterfront; the program consists of vaudeville acts, the latest songs, monologues and acrobatic works.

-- Sharon K. Sanders