Out of the past 7/15/09

25 years ago: July 15, 1984

The Rev. Martin Culligan's dream has come true; on July 5, three bells were hung from a 46-foot belfry in front of St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Cape Girardeau; the church, completed in 1976, has waited eight years for the belfry.

Construction has been started by Erb Industrial Equipment Co., Highway 74 and West End Boulevard, on an 8,000-square-foot addition to house major service and repair quarters.

50 years ago: July 15, 1959

Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg, a member of the history faculty at St. Louis University, speaks at the morning assembly at State College; he was prime minister of Austria when Adolf Hitler annexed the country in 1938.

Major Cape Girardeau buildings under construction aren't suffering, at least not yet, from the national steel strike; a survey of construction on the State College campus shows that contractors are in excellent shape should the strike be prolonged; likewise, all the steel is on hand at the Alma Schrader School, except the uprights for the four-room addition agreed to after the original work was started.

75 years ago: July 15, 1934

The march of progress in the form of highway construction is giving members of the First Pentecostal Church on South Sprigg Street something to worry about; with plans made for a district convention to be held there Aug. 7 through 10; the pastor, the Rev. J.B. Howard, has learned that the street will be closed for widening and it will be impossible to get to the church.

The Rev. Elbert D. Owen resigns in the morning as pastor of First Baptist Church, having reconsidered and accepted a pastoral call from the First Baptist Church at Moberly, Mo.

100 years ago: July 15, 1909

It is said that the present flood in the Mississippi River is the highest one on record for the month of July.

Charles Buschong, superintendent of the new federal building, hauls a flag staff to the new building, and the work of setting it will begin next Monday; it isn't easy to find such a stick of timber, and this one came from a St. Louis dealer who saved up some of the big timbers from the World's Fair; it measures 2 feet square and more than 40 feet long.

-- Sharon K. Sanders