Out of the past: Aug. 7

1997

In mid-June, Cape Girardeau and NationsBank officials announced they had reached a verbal agreement giving the city a 60-day option to buy the old Boatmen's Bank building at 100 Broadway; less than 60 days later, Trammell Crow, a St. Louis-based real estate firm, has taken out classified ads in the Southeast Missourian announcing that the building is for sale; an agent at Trammell Crow who placed the ad said NationsBank requested the ad; "We're asking $350,000 for it," he said.

Route J is closed to traffic; motorists traveling in the area start using alternate routes and will continue to use them until Sept. 1, when a relocated Route J reopens; travelers en route to Neely's Landing will have to take the long way around to reach their destinations; Route J is being relocated to make way for a $350 million expansion project by Procter & Gamble Co.; the project calls for the moving of a 1.1-mile section of road around the perimeter of the P&G expansion area.

1972

Some monkeying around is taking place in the Bessie-Franklin Street neighborhood; a little, foot-long monkey keeps returning to a maple tree in the yard of Mrs. John X. Johnson, 1513 Bessie, and won't leave; attempts to capture the gray squirrel monkey have been fruitless; the animal belongs to Mike Parker of East Cape Park, Illinois, who lost it Saturday night in Capaha Park.

Judith Farris, a native of Cape Girardeau who began studying voice under Mary Lou Henry at State College here and has since performed in New York City's Carnegie Hall, is studying this summer at the Summer Vocal Institute in Graz, Austria; a graduate of Cape State, Farris is currently studying with Madame Uta Graf in New York City.

1947

There's a bit of relief from the heat, especially in the early morning hours, but there is nothing to indicate a major break in the torrid weather that has gripped Cape Girardeau and the rest of the Midwest for 13 days; the mercury soared to 102 again yesterday in Cape Girardeau, the third straight day for that reading and the sixth day it has reached 100 or more.

A new rendezvous in the Houck Stadium neighborhood has opened for college and teen year youngsters in Noland's Fountainette, a basement ice cream-soft drink establishment at 1127 Broadway; active operator is Duree Noland, who has as his partner Joe W. Harvey.

1922

Cape Girardeau is humming with activity as final plans and preparations are made for the decennial celebration of the Farm Bureaus of Missouri here Thursday; details of the plans for the handling of the monster crowd, with the thousands of automobiles that will be here for the day, are complete; planners say it could be the largest gathering in the history of the city.

John Crafton, 19, a soldier in the Army stationed at Camp Pike, Arkansas, on his way from the camp to Oran, Missouri, to spend a short furlough with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. J.C. Crafton, was among those fatally killed when a Missouri Pacific fast train crashed into a local passenger train at Sulfur Springs, Missouri, late Saturday night; he died yesterday morning in the Missouri Pacific Hospital in St. Louis.

-- Sharon K. Sanders