Out of the past: Dec. 26

1992

Santa's Workshop, tucked away in the west wing of West Park Mall, is closed; but the "workshops" of area retailers are wide open the day after Christmas, welcoming shoppers and their post-Christmas cash; stores are crowded, as area shoppers and their families hit retail establishments full force, returning unwanted gifts and taking advantage of sales.

Today marks the final publication of the Southeast Missourian's five-week Saturday newspaper evaluation; in coming weeks, newspaper personnel will study the financial viability of continuing this project.

1967

About six weeks of work -- more if wet weather continues to prevail -- remain in the installation of lighting for the new runway and taxiways at the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport; until the lighting is installed, the new 6,500-foot runway will be a daytime facility only; night flights will continue using the old 4,000-foot runway which crosses the new strip.

A heap of rubble is all that remains of old Trinity Hall, formerly the Alt house, after the headache ball completed its work Saturday; the old house on Pacific Street was built by Capt. George Alt in 1903; it was acquired by Trinity Lutheran Church in 1915, housing Sunday School classes, ice cream socials, and meetings of youth groups; it has been razed to make room for expanded school facilities.

1942

Fulton M. Moore, vice president and general manager of the Cape Institute of Aeronautics, announces the new Army airfield on Highway 61 has been officially designated Harris Field; the name is in memory of Lawrence Harris, a flight instructor for Parks Air College in East St. Louis, Illinois, who, with an Army cadet to whom he was giving instruction, was killed in a crash two years ago.

Tentative plans are made for starting a government project the coming week to remove the streetcar rails for use as war scrap; work will likely be started Tuesday, on a trial basis, to determine the cost of taking the rails from the concrete; 30 men now engaged on a WPA street project, that of grading Bertling Street east of West End Boulevard, will be transferred to the scrap project.

1917

The Rev. and Mrs. J. Pendleton Scruggs leave in the afternoon for Louisville, Kentucky, to spend a somewhat belated Christmas holiday visit to their relatives there; the Rev. Scruggs will return here for the first Sunday in January services, while his wife tarries a month with her relatives.

Eighteen men who have been laboring for two weeks on the waterworks in the far north end of the city for the Missouri Public Utilities Co. quit work in the manner of a strike yesterday, when they were notified their daily wages would be cut from 30 cents an hour to 25 cents; when the river fell two weeks ago leaving the water intake pipe high and dry, these men were hired by the company to dig a trench across a sandbar, through which water was to be pumped to the intake-pipe end.

-- Sharon K. Sanders