Out of the past 9/14/08

25 years ago: Sept. 14, 1983

Attendance at the SEMO District Fair yesterday was down slightly from last year, but tonight's attendance at a tractor pull should make up for that; last night's entertainment before the grandstand was the Hee Haw Road Show.

MOUNDS, Ill. -- The Illinois Department of Corrections and the Illinois Capital Development Board confirm that the Old Titus School Building here is being considered as a site for a minimum-security prison work camp.

50 years ago: Sept. 14, 1958

Old McKendree Chapel welcomes back hundreds of worshipers from Cape Girardeau County and a wide district on the occasion of the 25th annual service of commemoration of the first Methodist house of worship west of the Mississippi River.

For the first time, the SEMO District Fair ends on a Sunday, the final act in the weeklong event being a horse show; fair officials report the largest paid attendance in the history of the exposition: 46,327.

75 years ago: Sept. 14, 1933

A minimum-wage scale for labor on government construction projects along the Mississippi River is specified in notices received by local contractors; the new scale provides payment of at least 45 cents per hour for unskilled labor on the Missouri side of the river, 50 cents per hour on the Illinois side, a wage of $1.10 per hour for skilled labor on the Missouri side and $1.20 per hour for skilled labor on the Illinois side.

An agreement has been reached that will allow the Central High School football games to be staged at Houck Stadium; the high school will pay the college $75 per game for use of the stadium.

100 years ago: Sept. 14, 1908

Today is the 225th anniversary of the establishment of the first colony of Germans on the American continent, and Girardeans make a holiday of the occasion by attending a great German circus, the Wallace-Hagenbeck Circus; circus-goers come in on every train, with Perryville, Jackson, Advance, Chaffee, Sikeston, Oran and Benton sending large delegations.

Mr. and Mrs. Clay Phelps return to Cape Girardeau from Cairo, Ill., on the Georgia Lee; they were there making arrangements for the launching of the Belle of the Cape.

-- Sharon K. Sanders