Out of the past 8/21/06

25 years ago: Aug. 21, 1981

The Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport control tower will close at 5 p.m. Aug. 29, and a supervisor and three non-striking air traffic controllers there will be assigned to other airports in St. Louis; the tower will remain closed for at least 90 days because of the controllers strike while the Federal Aviation Agency reassesses the nation's system of control towers.

The Cape Girardeau Redevelopment Corp., the organization formed to put a new face on the city's waterfront area, has agreed to employ the St. Louis planning and consulting firm of Booker Associates Inc. to develop a conceptual redevelopment plan for the downtown business district.

50 years ago: Aug. 21, 1956

Victory Construction Co. is the low bidder among four competing firms for the construction of an extension of the Galladay sanitary trunk sewer northward to serve an area along Cape Rock Drive and the new Alanna subdivision.

The second presentation of "The Legend of Cape Girardeau" pageant is held in the evening at Houck Stadium as part of the continuing sesquicentennial activities; final judging of the Sisters of the Swish is also held.

75 years ago: Aug. 21, 1931

John M. Cox, World War veteran, who resides in the old convent property on South Spanish Street, receives compensation from the U.S. government for permanent disability suffered during his service oversees with the Army; Cox receives a check for $9,000 and, under terms of the compensation clause, will receive $57.50 monthly the remainder of his life.

The first performance of the Gentry Bros. Shows is given in the afternoon on a lot at Broadway and Perry avenue; several hundred people attend the circus performance.

100 years ago: Aug. 21, 1906

The ordinance providing for the condemnation of certain pieces of property on the route of the proposed West End Boulevard was finally passed by the city council last night, after D.A. Glenn guaranteed that the fair association would give the necessary ground and he himself would make a similar donation from his own property, and Judge B.F. Davis agreed to give the ground from his holdings.

A heavy thunderstorm just after noon plays havoc with livestock; A.J. Flentge, the Broadway butcher, loses a fine horse and mule, and Henry Hoch Sr., living west of the fairgrounds, loses a mule.

-- Sharon K. Sanders