Out of the past: Dec. 12

1998

A building synonymous with downtown Cape Girardeau will get new life; the Buckner-Ragsdale building, constructed in 1916 and home of Buckner-Ragsdale Co., a Cape Girardeau family clothier since 1907, has been purchased by Cape Girardeau Brewing Co.; the two-story building on the southeast corner of Broadway and Main Street has housed a number of businesses since 1982, when Buckner-Ragsdale closed; a micro-brewery will be put in the building by a recently formed brewing company headed by Mark Sprigg and Phil Brinson, both of Cape Girardeau.

Donald Kaverman is Southeast Missouri State University's new athletic director, a position that has been unfilled since spring 1997; Kaverman, 44, will begin his duties Feb. 1; he is athletic director at Missouri Western State College in St. Joseph, a post he has held since 1995; Southeast launched a new national search for an athletic director last summer; Carroll Williams has been serving as interim athletic director at Southeast since the spring of 1997, when Richard McDuffie resigned to accept a position as athletic director at Eastern Illinois University.

1973

A diesel fuel shortage has stalled work on about $100 million in highway and other heavy construction projects across Missouri, idling some 8,000 workers in the last month, according to the Associated General Contractors of Missouri; most of the major contractors in Southeast Missouri have been affected in some way by the shortage; the R.B. Potashnick Construction Co. of Cape Girardeau has completely shut down one Missouri highway project and has only a five-day fuel supply left for another.

Jackson voters Tuesday approved by an overwhelming 92.4% margin a $500,000 general obligation bond issue for industrial expansion to the Lenco Inc. plant; of the 831 votes cast, only 63 were opposed.

1948

The second in a series of talks on race relations is given at a meeting of the Youth Fellowship of Grace Methodist Church in the evening; the pastor, the Rev. P.A. Kasey, is speaker.

The old Sturdivant mill on North Main Street, one of the oldest structures in Cape Girardeau, is undergoing major repairs on the river side, occasioned by the crumbling of the sandstone foundation, possibly caused by vibrations from passing trains; the five-story brick structure is owned by O.E. Stotlar of Marion, Illinois, and is leased to Charles Brune, operator of a dry cleaning establishment in a new structure at the front; Midwest Dairy Co. leases four floors for warehouse space, and Robert Erlbacher and W.E. Walker Jr. have the basement leased; Gerhardt Construction Co. is pouring a new concrete foundation in a portion of the back of the structure, and new bricks are being installed where needed.

1923

Four persons narrowly escape being trapped in the flames of a burning dwelling when fire, originating from a defective flue, destroys the roof and upper story of the George McClain home at Independence and Ellis streets at 12:45 a.m.; McClain, his housekeeper, Gladys Henley, and her son, John Alfred, 10, and Helen O'Bannon make their escape thanks to the timely warning of a passerby, Lynn Kimmich.

Cape Girardeau hunters say the mild weather the past few weeks has resulted in an unusually small number of wild ducks in the area; thousands of wild ducks of all kinds are still wintering in the lakes of Minnesota without any disposition to go South, according to James F. Gould, State Game and Fish Commissioner.

-- Sharon K. Sanders