Out of the past: April 19

1999

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After months of debate, the Cape Girardeau Board of Education establishes elementary school boundaries during a meeting at Central Junior High School; board members approve a proposal developed by administrators late last month that slightly modifies the original plan adopted in 1997; under the proposal, most school boundaries would remain the same, with the most significant changes affecting Jefferson and Franklin schools.

The Cape Girardeau City Council votes unanimously to issue $2.8 million in bonds for improvements to Cape Girardeau Regional Airport and the A.C. Brase Arena Building; the bonds will help with renovation projects and water and sewer improvements at the airport in conjunction with the Zenair project; Zenair of Canada Ltd. will open an airplane manufacturing plant at the airport; part of the bonds needed for the airport project were included with the cost of renovations at the A.C. Brase Arena Building.

1974

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Before 28 members of the League of Women Voters last night, Mayor Howard C. Tooke and city manager W.G. Lawley explained plans for the City of Cape Girardeau to assume responsibility for solid waste disposal when the present contact with American Disposal System expires June 30; Tooke explained: “At present we are guaranteeing a company some $14,000 a month for a service it provides to only 6,000 people, and we feel we can provide greater service to the whole city for that amount.”

With the flood of 1973 fresh on their minds, about 200 residents of the St. Johns Bayou and New Madrid Floodway gathered at a public hearing in Sikeston yesterday to give their unanimous support to a Corps of Engineers study for improvements in the flood-prone areas of New Madrid and Mississippi counties; not one of the 21 persons who testified at the two-hour hearing voiced disapproval of the corps’ proposed $23,561,000 project.

1949

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R.A. DeWitt, 65, judge of the Magistrate Court and Probate Court of Bollinger County, dies at University Hospital at Columbia after a short illness; Mr. and Mrs. DeWitt had gone to Columbia Thursday to visit their son, John W. DeWitt, a University of Missouri student; along with his wife and son, he is survived by five daughters, six grandchildren and three sisters.

An expiring $1,500 garbage contract, held the past year by Claude Taylor, farmer on Highway 74, will be open to the highest bidder at a letting on April 28; city officials expect several persons, including Taylor, to offer bids; last year was the first time the city received money for garbage collected in the city.

1924

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The steamer Bald Eagle served Cape Girardeau from 1917 to 1924.Courtesy of Raymond "Peg" Meyer ~ Southeast Missourian archive

Cape Girardeau bids farewell to the steamer Bald Eagle; giving way to a speedier and more modern craft, the old steamer, in service on the Mississippi River between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis the past eight years, pulls into port, lays sullenly at its moorings and, when darkness falls, moves silently away; by a strange turn of fate, the Bald Eagle is being supplanted by a vessel of the same name as the one that sank in the river north of here in 1916, and which the Bald Eagle succeeded in service; the new steamer Cape Girardeau will be christened here next Wednesday.

A temporary injunction restraining the Old Appleton Brewery at Appleton from manufacturing any of its products, ordered by Judge Charles B. Faris last October, is continued in force when a hearing on an application to make the injunction permanent is continued until next October; recently, two of the principal stockholders of the company were sentenced to two months in jail and fined $300 after they admitted making beer at the brewery last summer; the corporation was fined $1,000 in federal court.

Southeast Missourian librarian Sharon Sanders compiles the information for the daily Out of the Past column. She also writes a blog called “From the Morgue” that showcases interesting historical stories from the newspaper. Check out her blog at www.semissourian.com/history.