Out of the past: Aug. 15

1992

About 45 volunteers hit the streets of southeast Cape Girardeau to pick up litter. The cleanup is part of the Community Investment in Cape Girardeau beautification project, spearheaded by city councilmen Melvin Gateley and Doug Richards.

State Rep. Mary Kasten has been appointed campaign chairman for Peter Kinder in his run for Southeast Missouri's 27th state Senate seat.

1967

A blaze that earlier was thought to have been extinguished reignites and destroys a $30,000 house owned by John Morris. The seven-room stone-and-wood structure was near the intersection of Highway 74 and U.S. 61 south of Cape Girardeau.

After hours of fog-bound efforts to recapture 20 barges that broke from their moorings early in the day and threatened damage to the Mississippi River bridge here, a towboat captain reports all are back in tow or secured. Capt. W.J. Spence, commander of the towboat National Gateway, says 12 of the barges are back with the tow, and the other eight are beached or tied to the bank between the Cape Girardeau bridge and Thebes, Illinois.

1942

With the government crackdown on automobile tires, Cape Girardeans are parking their vehicles and riding the city bus instead. Records show in the first six months of 1942, when the real crackdown came on tires, there has been an 89 percent increase in travel in the city buses as compared to the last six months of 1941. From Jan. 1 through July, a total of nearly 500,000 persons traveled on the buses; in the last six months of 1941, only 263,500 persons used the buses.

Under the instruction of Mrs. H.F. Baumstark, several Cape Girardeau women have been trained to assist nurses and physicians in case of disasters. The Red Cross nurses' aides are Leota Kizer, Glenda Mabrey, Martha Mann, Mrs. Clarence Suedekum, Golden Flentge, Kathryn Stein and Mary Barber.

1917

J.V. Young, a cross-country showman, nearly loses his life at an early hour in the flood that swept down Cape LaCroix Creek two miles southwest of Cape Girardeau. Although saving his life, Young loses a bear in a cage, which floats away, and a trained horse also disappears.

Contractor T.J. Shorb says he has finished paving the two blocks of Broadway with the exception of tarring the joints between the pavement and the curb on either side, but the street remains closed because the city engineer is demanding a part of the paving on the west end must be taken up and relaid, which Shorb is refusing to do.

-- Sharon K. Sanders