Out of the past 8/8/11

25 years ago: Aug. 8, 1986

The nearly century-old Hanover Lutheran Church has been approved for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places by the Missouri Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which met in Cape Girardeau this week.

Additional street marking and signs will be installed at Main and Independence streets Monday in hopes of helping to eliminate confusion of motorists who continue to park not only in a no-parking zone along Main but in the wrong direction as well.

Workers removed the original, graceful spire on St. Mary's Cathedral in 1961, replacing it with a 10-foot cap. (Missourian archives photo by G.D. "Frony" Fronabarger)

50 years ago: Aug. 8, 1961

Marvin Campbell, who has served as county sanitarian since the county's milk inspection program was inaugurated in the late 1940s, has been renamed to the position by Dr. E.F. McDonald, county health officer; the appointment was confirmed by the county court.

The graceful spire that has marked St. Mary's Cathedral from its construction in 1868 is removed and will give way to a less lofty rectangular pyramid; the alteration was found necessary when workers, who were inside to make repairs, found damage done over the years too extensive to mend; the new cap will measure 10 feet.

75 years ago: Aug. 8, 1936

Operations will begin in about a week at the H.S. Mabrey Stave Co. plant on South Kingshighway, just south of the cement plant; timber is being hauled to the site, and when the plant gets going, the company expects to manufacture about 2 million staves and headings annually.

Jesse Stacy, a son of Mr. and Mrs. F.L. Stacy, will appear in the motion picture "The Big Broadcast of 1937," soon to be released for showing in theaters over the country; Stacy is in Hollywood with the Benny Goodman orchestra.

100 years ago: Aug. 8, 1911

About 40 people depart in two passenger cars on an excursion to Chicago, many Cape Girardeans making the trip; at $5, many feel they can afford the luxury.

Joseph Hunter, aged father of Mrs. L.B. Houck of Cape Girardeau, Lee Hunter of New Madrid, Mo., and A. Hunter of Los Angeles, is taken home at noon by his two sons, who came here to be with him and convey him to New Madrid; the old gentleman has spent the last winter and this much of the summer here.

-- Sharon K. Sanders