Out of the past 9/9/11

25 years ago: Sept. 9, 1986

Former president Gerald Ford visited the area yesterday, delivering a keynote address at an evening fundraiser for Rep. Bill Emerson.

Officials with the SEMO District Fair are pleased with the crowd that was on hand yesterday for opening night activities; 9,579 people attended; in front of the grandstand tonight will be the tractor pull.

50 years ago: Sept. 9, 1961

The Cape Girardeau School Board is making final preparations for a program to acquaint residents with the needs for expanded school facilities through a $1,650,000 bond issue to be voted on Oct. 3; planning for a new junior high school, as well as 14 additional rooms to two elementary buildings and to modernize the present Junior High, has been underway through the spring and summer months.

A broken journal causes derailment of two cars on a Missouri-Illinois freight train near the Marquette Cement Mfg. Co. plant on South Sprigg Street; entrance and egress to the plant is impeded by the train.

75 years ago: Sept. 9, 1936

The city of Cape Girardeau, still seeking means to increase municipal revenue, and without enough money on hand to pay current bills and to meet the Sept. 15 payroll, is considering adopting an ordinance which would levy a fixed sum on retailers based on the amount of their gross annual sales.

Elmer Sperling, son of Mr. and Mrs. William J. Sperling of Cape Girardeau, sails from Hamburg, Germany, and will arrive here about Sept. 20; Sperling, who was gone from this country four years studying hydraulic engineering, received his Ph.D. from Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe on the Rhine River.

100 years ago: Sept. 9, 1911

Frisco Engineer Berry will leave for Springfield, Mo., this evening to submit the various bids received from contractors for doing extensive work along the riverfront; the contract calls for paving of the levee and the tracks along Water Street, the raising of the main and side tracks, and the building of a portion of the retaining wall along the levee.

On the third floor of the Anderson Building on Good Hope Street, the Southeast Missouri Undertaking Co. is established by Messrs. Lorberg, Anderson, Young and Thompson.

-- Sharon K. Sanders