Out of the past: Dec. 24

1998

The Perryville Road improvement project failed to reach completion Monday as scheduled, a situation that will cost the contractors involved; Fronabarger Concreters Inc. of Jackson and Lappe Cement Finishing Inc. of Perryville, Missouri, will have to pay Cape Girardeau combined liquidated damages of $500 per calendar day until the road can be opened to traffic; the meter started running Tuesday; once the road is open, the contractors will continue to be charged $250 a day until the job is 100% complete; the damages will be withheld from the city's final payments to the contractors for the project.

A new contract has been signed on the Marquette Hotel in the 300 block of Broadway; the option contract, with a purchase agreement, was signed recently by Thad Bullock of Cape Girardeau, owner of the property, and Eugene Davis of Houston, Texas; the purchase agreement was for $630,000, which includes the hotel, garage and parking lot.

1973

Closing hours for some retail businesses in Cape Girardeau are extended longer than previously planned in efforts to atone for shutting their doors early Wednesday and Thursday nights when driving conditions became hazardous; one downtown merchant says stores wanted to give shoppers the opportunity to buy last-minute Christmas gifts that were denied by the snow and ice earlier in the week,

Rebuilding of the Pancake House, 1448 N. Kingshighway, recently damaged by fire, will begin immediately, reports the owner, Louis W. Bahn; renovation will include expansion of the structure to increase customer seating capacity from 44 to 72 persons, utilizing the present kitchen area, and expansion of the building with a 22-by-32-foot addition on the south for a new and larger kitchen, equipped with completely new food preparation facilities.

1948

The first ice storm of the season, coating trees and power lines with a growing layer of glaze, strikes Southeast Missouri early in the morning, but motorists and bus companies report little interference with highway traffic; the freezing rain, with the temperature at 32 degrees, began to fall in Cape Girardeau late last night; it continued at a pace slightly more than a drizzle, forming a sheath of ice over vegetation and power lines.

Electricity over a large section of Cape Girardeau goes off for varying lengths of time around noon, when a cross arm on an electrical standard at Broadway and Sprigg Street breaks, disrupting two circuits.

1923

Nearly 4,000 persons, including 1,500 youngsters, attended the community Christmas celebration in Courthouse Park Sunday evening, the first community Yule observance here in nine years; a cold north wind and rain-soaked ground failed to dampen the spirits of the crowd, which listened respectfully to a short Christmas program that ushered in the holiday celebration.

Employees of the Cape Girardeau Post Office go to work at the Federal Building in the morning with the biggest mass of Christmas mail in the history of local office; despite hours of extra work on Sunday, the mail had accumulated to such an extent that it was hardly possible to move about in the mail-room department; three extra men, in addition to the regular force and three substitutes, making a grand total of 26 attaches, are working to remove the greater part of the packages so that Girardeans tomorrow may enjoy their Christmas presents.

-- Sharon K. Sanders