Out of the past 7/8/10

25 years ago: July 8, 1985

The Mississippi Queen, the largest paddlewheeler floating on the Mississippi, docks here in the morning as the Water Street Six plays for passengers; the Queen is en route to New Orleans from St. Louis.

Charles Stucker, who has prowled Cape Girardeau for two years as the city animal-control officer tracking skunks, deer and other wildlife, met a formidable challenge yesterday; a two-pound squirrel monkey held him off for more than two hours from a tree on North Spanish Street.

50 years ago: July 8, 1960

Educational specifications, to be completed no later than Oct. 15 and to include recommendations from members of the instructional staff, were ordered drafted for the proposed junior high school by the school board last night.

The Trinity Lutheran Church congregation will soon have use of its own parking area for the first time in its 106-year history; two houses have been razed to make way for an 80-car lot on Themis Street behind the church.

75 years ago: July 8, 1935

Application will be made to the Federal Radio Commission for permission to operate a shortwave radio station at the Cape Girardeau police headquarters; the radio was installed earlier in the year, but it was silenced recently when a commission inspector discovered that no permit had been issued for its operation.

Constitutionality of the Agricultural Adjustment Act is attacked in suits filed by the Cape County Milling Co. of Jackson and the Scott County Milling Co. of Sikeston, Mo., in federal court in St. Louis; both suits ask injunctions to restrain the federal government from collecting processing taxes on wheat.

100 years ago: July 8, 1910

E. Drusch, the dry goods merchant doing business at the corner of Broadway and Frederick Street, will shortly begin the construction of a fine new building on the corner of Ellis Street and Broadway.

Col. G.C. Thilenius, 81, died yesterday at noon; he was a native of Goettingen, Germany, coming to this country in 1849; he married Margaretha Fromann in 1857 in St. Louis, coming to Cape Girardeau shortly afterwards; during the Civil War, he was colonel of the Home Guards.

-- Sharon K. Sanders