Out of the past 8/1/06

25 years ago: Aug. 1, 1981

A strike threatened for Monday by the nation's air-traffic controllers could disrupt Ozark Air Lines service in Cape Girardeau under a Federal Aviation Agency contingency strike plan to disallow some carrier flights of less than 500 miles; if the nation's controllers vote to impose a strike Monday, the seven controllers assigned to Cape Girardeau will participate, and pickets will be set up at Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport.

MOUND CITY, Ill. -- Mound City, a small community on the banks of the Ohio River, has been awarded a $410,000 grant by the Department of Housing Urban Development for the construction of a grain-loading facility on the river.

50 years ago: Aug. 1, 1956

PUXICO, Mo. -- Flames that roared through the frame, three-story Reagan Nursing Home here shortly after 10 p.m. yesterday took the lives of 12 of its 13 residents, who frantically sought escape before they perished; nine of the 12 who died were elderly people, and all but one was trapped on the second and third floors.

Granite cobblestones, which have formed most of the surface of the Broadway hill from Main Street to Lorimier Street, will be removed and a concrete surface laid in the two-block stretch under plans adopted last night by the Cape Girardeau City Council.

75 years ago: Aug. 1, 1931

Relief from the heat that has gripped this section for a week is being forecast for tonight or tomorrow; for the immediate Cape Girardeau area, showers are predicted.

Mrs. Amanda Jones, 85, a former slave, dies of infirmities of age at the home of Mrs. S.X. Arthur in Cape Girardeau; she was born in Lexington, Miss., March 22, 1846; as a slave, Jones worked as a house maid for Mrs. Jefferson Davis, wife of the president of the Confederacy.

100 years ago: Aug. 1, 1906

E.W. Flentge, candidate for Missouri railroad and warehouse commissioner on the Republican ticket, leaves in the morning for Humansville, Mo., where he is to speak tomorrow; he will campaign at an old settlers' reunion being held there.

Jack Sullivan has taken a position with the Riverview Hotel as night clerk.

-- Sharon K. Sanders