Out of the past 8/19/14

1989

A stream of hungry visitors pours through the doors at the Show Me Center for the third annual Schnuck's Food Festival; around 26,925 people attend the free festival from noon until 8 p.m.

A Cape Girardeau woman is in fair condition at a local hospital after she was injured yesterday at Trail of Tears State Park; she was injured when she fell an estimated 30 to 50 feet down the hillside below the observation point; she had climbed below the observation deck to retrieve her purse.

1964

An interstate bridge will be built at Caruthersville, Missouri, and Interstate 24 will be routed through Southern Illinois to Pulleys Mill under a decision announced yesterday by federal authorities; the decision apparently closes the matter of the I-24 routing.

The city council will be asked to pursue plans for the straightening of Cape LaCroix Creek as a flood-control measure; Albert M. Spradling Jr., an attorney representing a group of businesses on or near U.S. 61, says he'll appear with some of his clients before the council to make the request.

1939

Highway 25 through Jefferson and Ste. Genevieve counties will be completely paved within a few months, giving Southeast Missouri a completed hard-surface, fast route to St. Louis; the State Highway Commission announces the contract for paving the 8-mile gap in the road will be let Sept. 1.

Despite early threats of rain, hundreds of workers from other International Shoe plants come to Cape Girardeau to join with 1,200 employees of the local unit in a big picnic at Fairground Park.

1914

John Mehrle, the well-known farmer living out on rural route No. 4, receives a telegram from his wife saying she arrived in New York City last night and will be in St. Louis tomorrow; Mrs. Mehrle, accompanied by her daughter, Esther, and her sister, Mrs. Martin Bock, of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, was visiting her mother in Elberfeld, Germany, when hostilities broke out in Europe.

Bell Telephone Co. closes a contract with the Kellog Switchboard & Supply Co. of Chicago for a new common battery switchboard for the Jackson exchange; the old-style telephones in use in Jackson will be removed, and new, crankless telephones will be installed.

-- Sharon K. Sanders