Out of the past: April 29

1995

With a few quick signatures in a lawyer's office and a $600,000 loan from the seller, the Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation yesterday took title to St. Vincent's College; the action completed a transaction that began in January with a $50,000 down payment on the $700,000 purchase price; the foundation plans to turn the historic, 20-acre site into a museum and Civil War interpretive center.

Despite the rain, the Area 9 Missouri Special Olympics meet is held at the Abe Stuber Track and Field Complex.

1970

The Otahki Girl Scout Council gained a new shelter, a first aid nursing station and six new tent sites at Camp Cherokee Ridge in Wayne County, as adults in the scouting program and graduating Senior Scouts shared honors at the organization's annual appreciation dinner last night; in a special tribute, friends and co-workers contributed $2,850 to the "Mary Spitzmiller Fund" to construct a new shelter; Spitzmiller served the council as executive director 12 years.

Plans for a proposed shopping mall are being endorsed by most property owners along the two blocks of Main Street, which would be sheltered by the sprawling structures; but the question of how adequate fire protection could be furnished to Main Street stores was raised by Cape Girardeau Fire Chief Carl J. Lewis.

1945

The Rev. J.W. Pattee, who spent six years in the mission fields in China, is guest speaker in the morning at the Church of the Nazarene; during five years of his missionary service, he saw the fighting between the Japanese and Chinese, and on three occasion was in the midst of battle; when the war between Japan and the United States began, Pattee was taken prisoner by the Japanese and interned for six months.

Unconfirmed rumors of the surrender of Germany last evening set in motion plans for a community-wide observance today; but those plans are set aside with the disappointing statement by President Harry Truman that the peace report was unfounded.

1920

Cape Girardeau police are conducting a drive against immorality in the city, and in the last two days six persons have been arrested and given heavy fines in police court; three unmarried couples have been arrested by police in downtown rooming houses for misconduct.

Mrs. Arch Campbell of Cape Girardeau receives a telegram from her son, Arch Campbell Jr., chief yeoman in the U.S. Navy, stationed at a naval base in France, announcing his arrival in New York; Campbell will be in Washington tomorrow and hopes to get a 30-day furlough so he can come home to visit his family.

-- Sharon K. Sanders