Out of the past 6/23/09

25 years ago: June 23, 1984

With the close of voter registration books only 18 days away, County Clerk Rodney Miller says he expects 200 to 300 more names to be added to the eligibility rolls for the Aug. 7 primary election in Cape Girardeau County; there presently are about 32,400 registered voters in the county.

Cape Girardeau residents may get a bang out of the Fourth of July; the city council has approved a new fireworks ordinance allowing firecrackers to be sold and discharged; previous city regulations prohibited the sale or discharge of firecrackers in the city.

50 years ago: June 23, 1959

Alma Schrader Elementary School, honoring an educator who taught in Cape Girardeau for 50 years, is the name chosen by the Cape Girardeau Board of Education as the name for the new school near Dennis Scivally Park, which will open next fall.

Cape Girardeau police are being kept busy investigating reports of the abusing of the privilege of discharging fireworks within the city; between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday, officers receive 105 fireworks complaints.

75 years ago: June 23, 1934

Stonewall J. Long, farmer-lawyer of the Patton, Mo., community, was found dead yesterday by a neighbor at his farm, where he lived alone; he had been dead for about a week.

A Boy Scout troop from Cape Girardeau is building a lodge with stone fireplace and all the obligatory trimmings of the backwoods settler's cabin on a parcel of leased ground in one of the most picturesque places in the county; it is in a ravine on Indian Creek, in a spot surrounded by pine-clad ridges and wooded knobs, not far from the Mississippi River.

100 years ago: June 23, 1909

The Roth Tobacco Co. of Cape Girardeau will hold its annual meeting July 12 to elect five directors and increase the capital stock from $10,000 to $40,000.

An old pioneer who came from Saxony in the early days and settled in Cape Girardeau and Perry counties has passed away; Mrs. Christiana Petzoldt died at the home of her son, Richard, in Perry County, at the age of nearly 92.

-- Sharon K. Sanders