Out of the past: April 9

1996

In 1902, on a small farm along the Little Muddy Creek in Bollinger County, Missouri, a passion for the law first stirred in a 10-year-old boy; 14 years later, he set out on a legal career that spanned eight decades; yesterday, the lifetime love affair between the man and the law ended; Rush Hudson Limbaugh, one of Cape Girardeau's favorite sons and the nation's oldest practicing lawyer, died Monday afternoon at his home here; he was 104.

The Happy Hollow area west of the Cape Girardeau City Hall has emerged as the leading site for a new $30 million federal courthouse; the nearly six-acre, mostly vacant site is south of Independence in an area that was once a city dump; the government views Happy Hollow as a compromise site that would meet its needs and that of the community, says Jim Ogden of the General Services Administration's regional office in Kansas City.

1971

Dikes and river banks along the Mississippi River from Cape Girardeau south to Cairo, Illinois, are begging for a face-lift; through a joint contract, Eugene Luhr and Co. and Patton-Tully Transportation Co. are engaged in repairing bank revetments and the stone dikes that project into the river and keep the channel open; the work is being done under a three-part contract totaling $1,062,000.

Plans are being made for construction of another large commercial building in Cape Girardeau; Wieser Motor Co., owned by John L. Wieser and his son, Jerry, will begin construction withing a few days on a 10,000-square-foot structure on Highway 61 north and just west of Cape LaCroix Creek; the firm will vacate its main building at 1415 Independence St., and its auxiliary structure at 300 N. Kingshighway.

1946

Investigation is underway at McClure, Illinois, of two burglaries Sunday night or Monday morning and attempts there to steal at least three automobiles; in all, $434 in cash and postal receipts were stolen; a steel vault in the combination post office and Ray Bunch store, formerly a bank building, was opened; money stolen included $360 in store receipts and $40 of postal receipts; the Illinois Central passenger-freight office was also broken into, a window being damaged with heavy tools; police have no clues of any consequence.

Aviation enthusiasts, and those who make their living in the sky, from all over the nation have purchased 135 airplanes from the war surplus stock of military craft at Harris Field in the past six weeks; every day, many persons call at the field to look at planes; the shops there are kept busy putting planes in flyable condition.

1921

A report on an investigation of Cape Girardeau's Black population, being conducted by a Teachers College class in applied sociology, was given by Dr. M.R. Thompson in chapel yesterday morning; he explained the class is investigating such questions as "whom the father of the family is working for, his wages, whether the family own their home or rent and how much rent they pay, and the size of the family"; when the study is completed next week, it will show how large the Black population of the city is and the conditions under which it lives.

Cape Girardeau school superintendent J.N. Crocker has received a raise in salary of $300 a year, making his yearly income $3,600; Belmont Farley, principal of Central High School, was also voted a raise last night by the school board, his yearly salary going from $2,500 to $2,700.

-- Sharon K. Sanders