Out of the past: April 25

1992

More than 20 artists and crafters demonstrate their skills at Black Forest Village, north of Cape Girardeau, as part of the second annual Mississippi River Valley Scenic Drive. Sizable crowds are reported at a number of sites along the 131-mile tour despite mostly cloudy skies and drizzle.

Despite the chilly, damp weather, more than 500 people turn out to help beautify the Cape Girardeau city parks during Friends of the Park Day. Most of the activity is centered at Capaha Park, where flowers are planted, playground equipment painted, leaves raked and litter picked up.

1967

With about $375,000 of the $1 million for a new Saint Francis Hospital yet to be raised, workers are preparing to take the fund drive directly to the people of the hospital service area. The general-gifts division will hold its kickoff dinner May 2 at the Arena Building.

Officers were elected, members named to the board of directors and committees appointed when the not-for-profit Cape Girardeau Community Sheltered Workshop Inc. held its organizational meeting last night. The group was incorporated for the establishment and administration of an extended-employment sheltered workshop here.

1942

After pounding more than 130,000 miles of pavement and dirt streets, Steven C. "Pete" Propst, 59, a carrier on city mail route No. 5, is going to retire. He will end his 29 years of service April 30 and retire to his farm 15 miles west of Cape Girardeau on U.S. 61.

Second Lt. Ruby Walker, daughter of Mrs. J.C. Walker of Cape Girardeau, is stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, with members of General Hospital Unit 21, made up of former staff members at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. In the Army Nurses Corps, Walker, with other officers, is awaiting a call to foreign service.

1917

Corine Cox, 17, is discovered to be a smallpox victim and is restrained from boarding a train going to Poplar Bluff, Missouri, where she worked in a hotel until a week ago. She is taken to a drug store, where a doctor examines her; she is treated to a bath of formaldehyde for disinfection. The girl, without any funds, likely will be cared for by the city.

At a joint meeting of the Cape Girardeau City Council and the Commercial Club in the evening, the plans for the proposed Frisco passenger station are rejected. The plans now offered show a long, low building of stucco, not at all in keeping with the specifications of the one named in the contract between the city and the Frisco.

-- Sharon K. Sanders