Out of the past: Dec. 4

1992

An investigation is underway to determine how a 25-to-30-pound, glazed-clay pylon fell from the top of the closed Marquette Hotel early yesterday; no one was injured when the roof ornament crashed onto Fountain Street.

Bungee jumping has come to Cape Girardeau; St. Louis Bungy, the Midwest's oldest bungee business, will be at Big Al's nightclub, 610 S. Kingshighway, each evening through Saturday; daredevils will have the opportunity to plunge from a platform 125 feet in the air while attached to nothing but a giant rubber band.

1967

The old steamer Cape Girardeau rests listing to port alongside the wharf in St. Louis, her second deck 80 percent under water; the victim of an accident the cause of which remains unknown, the 44-year-old sternwheeler sank at its moorings early Saturday; after plying the Mississippi and Ohio rivers for almost 30 years, it lately served as a restaurant on the St. Louis waterfront.

The Cape Girardeau County Court discloses the 1968 county budget will be smaller than 1967 and will be based on no increase in the tax rate; the budget as proposed is for $625,549 in appropriations on a tax rate of 45 cents per $100 assessed valuation; that budget figure is about $16,000 below the budget for the current year.

1942

At least 529 people, trained and ready to perform their respective duties when the call comes, will be engaged in the many phases of civilian defense activity tomorrow afternoon, when Cape Girardeau undergoes its first public air-raid alert; 84 air-raid wardens were called by their ward captains last night and given final instructions as to their duties in conducting people to shelters in the business districts.

Consolidated School of Aviation Inc. on Highway 74 has purchased two airplanes, both Waco biplane trainers, for use in the secondary instruction program, as the school begins to rebuild its equipment and structures after fire destroyed the port Tuesday; in the meantime, ground-school classes for the Army and Navy students who were in training there have been moved temporarily to the Teachers College.

1917

J.T. Nunn and August Vogelsang were re-elected directors of the Building and Loan Association at the annual election last evening; a fight made to depose them proved to be short of sufficient votes to oust them from their places.

Cape Girardeau Central High School students have solved the mystery in connection with their football defeat by the weak Kennett, Missouri, team on Thanksgiving Day; it was learned on the best authority a Normal student whose home is in Kennett stole Central's signals and forwarded them to players on his hometown's team.

-- Sharon K. Sanders