Out of the past: April 5

1990

A pilot recycling project was initiated yesterday, with more than one ton of trash being collected from the Cape Girardeau suburb of Woodland Hills; 34 percent of the 214 households in the subdivision participated in the program, which is sponsored by the city and the League of Women Voters.

The 136-year-old Common Pleas Courthouse is under siege; a pair of woodpeckers is doing serious damage to one of the front pillars of the building, leaving county officials scrambling to find a non-lethal solution; complicating the problem is that woodpeckers are protected under federal law.

1965

Plans are approved by the Cape Girardeau County Court for a $60,000 museum to be constructed in Trail of Tears State Park; the general idea of the museum has already been approved by the state; agreement on the site and other details must next be made.

Word has been received that Maj. Frank E. Bennett, a brother of Mrs. William E. Hartwell of Cape Girardeau, was killed yesterday in Vietnam; Bennett was a flight leader with units flying F-105 jet fighter-bombers; it was reported that Bennett's plane was one of two American crafts downed by enemy fighter planes in action against targets in North Vietnam.

1940

A small cemetery, known as the Brewer graveyard, is on one of two tracts of ground upon which the government yesterday filed a condemnation suit in Federal Court here to acquire the land to build the Clearwater dam on the Black River near Piedmont, Missouri.

Preliminary construction work is started on a brick business structure to be on the site of the old Elks building, 118 Themis St.; the owner, Charles A. Juden, says the structure will be leased to Albert Smith and Ellis Green, who will install public bowling alleys.

1915

A. Morgan and family arrive in the morning from Wittenberg to make Cape Girardeau their home; Morgan is a carpenter by trade and will go to work for contractor George W. Vaughn.

Cape Girardeau voters will go to the polls tomorrow to elect a new slate of municipal officers; J.W. Phillips, who heads both the Progressive and Labor tickets, will try to wrest the mayoral seat away from the incumbent, Fred A. Kage, who tops the Citizen's Ticket; Otto Kochtitzky also hopes to unseat Kage; his is the only name appearing on the Square Deal Ticket.

-- Sharon K. Sanders