Out of the past: Aug. 18

1998

Cape Girardeau voters will decide whether to increase and extend the city's hotel-motel tax to help pay for Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus; the City Council voted 6-1 to place on the Nov. 3 ballot the proposal to increase the tax from 3% to 4% and extend the tax from 2004 to 2030; in addition, the city's 1% restaurant tax would also be extended until 2030, but would not be increased.

Notre Dame High School students will get two extra days of summer this week while construction and maintenance crews put the finishing touches on the new building; classes will begin at 8 a.m. Friday, two days later than originally scheduled; delivery problems for some furniture and equipment and several unfinished construction projects are blamed for the delay.

1973

It seems to be a wait-and-see game at Gale, Illinois, between the East Cape Girardeau Levee District Board of Commissioners and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over who is responsible for repairing a breach in the mainline Mississippi River levee; a section of the levee north of Gale was breached June 14 in an attempt to rid flooded Alexander County of a tremendous amount of interior water; the Corps twice turned down requests to breach the levee; now the levee district is apparently looking to the Corps for help in replacing the dirt and bringing the levee back up to grade; but the help hasn't been forthcoming.

The John L. Wescoat Marina in Trail of Tears State Park is scheduled to be dedicated next summer; work on the marina has been ongoing for several years, with occasional snags causing delays.

1948

Retail butter prices have taken a sharp drop, falling 5 1/2 cents a pound in the past week; the last drop was 2 cents; at Sugar Creek Creamery Co., 103 S. Sprigg St., it is suggested that one cause for the drop is the relatively cool summer the Midwest has experienced thus far, affecting ice cream sales.

Judge L.D. Joslyn of Charleston, Missouri, judge of the Circuit Court, presides in Jackson in the morning for the first time in Cape Girardeau County; the first business is the introduction of Mrs. William C. Hines, new enrollee of the county bar, by Rush H. Limbaugh; she is a new member of Limbaugh & Limbaugh firm.

1923

Arthur L. Smith, 34, a section hand with the Frisco Railroad, was drowned when a truck he was driving on Kingshighway left the road and plunged into Blue Hole Lake near the Hely Stone Co. plant late yesterday; his body was recovered by swimmers in 22 feet of water and within 10 feet of the place where the truck went into the lake; defective steering gear on the truck, resulting from a collision with a large truck only minutes previous, is said to have caused Smith to lose control of the vehicle.

Lyman Matthews of Oran, Missouri, announces he will begin picking cotton on his plantation Aug. 27; Matthews has 400 acres of cotton, and he anticipates a good yield.

-- Sharon K. Sanders