Out of the past 8/29/11

25 years ago: Aug. 29, 1986

Efforts by the county commission to create a well-stocked fishing lake in the County Farm Park for senior citizens and young children receive a bitter setback; a sudden depletion of dissolved oxygen in the new South Lake results in a large fish kill.

Former president Gerald R. Ford will be in the 8th Congressional District Sept. 8 to campaign on behalf of Rep. Bill Emerson; Ford will be the featured guest at a fundraising reception honoring Emerson at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Van Puls in Jackson.

50 years ago: Aug. 29, 1961

Residents in the neighborhood of Rockwood Park want the city council to do something about the unsightly weeds and nighttime prowlers in the park; they are asking the city to install lights to discourage late-night loitering in the park, which is in a depressed, rocky area off Rockwood Drive and to the east of Highland Drive.

Otto Sperling will be serving his last shift as Jackson's night marshal Thursday; Sperling resigned the position to accept a job at the Jackson dressed meat plant; Robert Clifton will be elevated to the position of night marshal.

75 years ago: Aug. 29, 1936

Cape Girardeau's new 350-foot "skyscraper" smokestack at the Marquette Cement Manufacturing Co. plant has reached its ultimate height.

Water has become so scarce in may places in Cape Girardeau and adjoining counties that farmers and residents of smaller communities who have never before had any experience with water as a merchantable necessity are now paying for it; water is scarce in the towns of Appleton, Friedheim, Daisy, Longtown, Frohna, Biehle, Uniontown, Schurbusch and Oak Ridge; water is being hauled from the water plant at Jackson to several of these communities, but chiefly Daisy and Oak Ridge.

100 years ago: Aug. 29, 1911

Florence O'Donoghue, who has spent the summer with her sister, Mrs. W.A. Nicodemus at Telluride, Colo., is at home for a week's visit with her mother before returning to her school duties in St. Louis.

Mary Bernice Williams of Jackson has signed a contract to teach the second grade in the West End School in Poplar Bluff, Mo.; she is the daughter of Mrs. J.W. Williams and has relatives and friends there.

-- Sharon K. Sanders