Out of the past: April 29

1997

A spokesman for Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. in Fort Worth, Texas, says its priorities are cleaning up wreckage, environmental remediation and repairing damaged tracks after a freight train it owns derailed and caught fire in Cape Girardeau; 16 cars of the 24-car train derailed at about 1:20 a.m. yesterday near Lone Star Industries at 2524 S. Sprigg St., including a tanker carrying phosphoric acid.

The preferred site for a new $100 million, gas-fired combined cycle power-generation plant is Dunklin County, Missouri; the favored site is west of Glennonville, Missouri, on the east side St. Francis River; but other sites are under consideration, including a location near Essex, Missouri, between Dexter and Sikeston, Missouri, and north of the Arkansas state line near Fagus, Missouri.

1972

The Missourian's weekly column, Business and Industry in Cape Girardeau, G.D. Fronabarger, is absent from today's edition, as the business writer is hospitalized; Fronabarger was injured in an automobile accident Friday.

The Southeast Missouri Law Enforcement Assistance Council Crime Laboratory at State College will soon add fingerprint analysis to its arsenal of crime work, says Dr. Robert C. Briner, director of the lab; it is the only regional crime lab functioning in Missouri and handles 10 to 20 cases per month; about 90% of the workload is drug related.

1947

Rising eight-tenths of a foot in 24 hours, the Mississippi River climbs to a stage of 37.9 feet at 8 a.m. at Cape Girardeau; the crest is expected tomorrow at 38.5 feet; the flood has disrupted train service between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis, seriously threatened traffic on Highway 25 between here and St. Louis, and forced more evacuations in Smelterville; all of Main Street between Independence and William streets is inundated.

Commissioner Philip H. Steck announces that Milton I. Parker of St. Louis, chief engineer for the Missouri Inspection Bureau, will be here next week to make a recommendation for the location of a second fire station to give adequate protection to the area recently added to the city limits.

1922

District road supervisor Roscoe Langston announces Kingshighway, south, between Cape Girardeau and Ancell, should reopen for traffic Monday; the road has been closed for two weeks by floodwaters from the Mississippi River covering more than three miles of the road.

Cape State College made a discovery this week that may be of vital interest to school boards, churches, lodges and others using moving picture machines; fire insurance companies notified President Joseph A. Serena that the installation of a moving picture machine in the college auditorium invalidated the school's insurance policies.

-- Sharon K. Sanders