Out of the past 7/20/08

25 years ago: July 20, 1983

Hot, dry weather has hit Southeast Missouri when late-planted corn and soybeans are at the critical development stages, and farmers are beginning to worry that yields will be reduced as a result; the unusually cool, wet weather last spring and prolonged flooding of the Mississippi River already severely reduced wheat yields in the area.

President Ronald Reagan yesterday signed the commission making Cape Girardeau lawyer Stephen N. Limbaugh a federal judge in the Eastern District of Missouri.

50 years ago: July 20, 1958

Formal rededication services marking the completion of a $1,398,000 construction program at Southeast Missouri Hospital are moved from the hospital terrace to the State College Little Theater because of showers; an open house with conducted tours of the new addition and the remodeled original building follows the program.

Ground is broken in the afternoon for the first unit of the new Grace Methodist Church on the congregation's property at Broadway and Caruthers Avenue; the Rev. Frank G. Tucker, district superintendent, is on hand for the event.

75 years ago: July 20, 1933

The Missouri State Highway Department has approved the concrete paving of 1 1/2 miles of the farm-to-market road from Cape Girardeau to Egypt Mills; the work now appears practically assured; the road will be 20 feet wide and will extend from the end of the present pavement on the Bend Road to the bridge over Juden Creek.

Professor Vest Myers, the dean-elect of Teachers College, arrives in Cape Girardeau with his wife and her sister, Ruby Van Sant, a teacher in the Ponca, Okla., schools.

100 years ago: July 20, 1908

John Herbst and Charley Hitt, two popular men-about-town, have bought the Arcade Saloon opposite the St. Charles Hotel on Main Street; this has been one of the most popular saloons in Cape Girardeau for years.

Contractor Mullins arrives with his wife from Kansas City; he is here to take in hand the work on the sewer system, which last week received a setback when a large number of laborers struck.

-- Sharon K. Sanders