Out of the past: Feb. 19

1990

GALE, Ill. -- Picket lines go up early in the morning at the site of the closed, Illada Energy Reclamation Co. Inc. plant in protest of a contractor's alleged refusal to hire union labor; the picket line is manned by members of Operating Engineers Local 318 of Harrisburg, Illinois, and Laborers Local 773 of Cairo, Illinois.

Saying the municipal election should be centered around hard issues, not personalities, mayoral candidate Al Spradling III calls for his opponent, Mayor Gene Rhodes, to debate him.

1965

In the company of Missouri Gov. Warren E. Hearnes, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus cuts the ribbon opening Interstate 55 from the Missouri line to Memphis, Tennessee, at a dedication ceremony at the Missouri-Arkansas line.

The Cape Girardeau County grand jury is meeting twice a week at present; it is believed the grand jury has already begun its investigation into the operations of the Cape Girardeau Police Department; jurors were ordered to make such an inquiry earlier this month by Circuit Judge W. Osler Statler.

1940

The channel of the Mississippi River between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis is clear for the first time this year; the Federal Barge Line towboat Iowa, which left St. Louis early Saturday, plowed its way through 65 miles of ice floes, which had blocked the stream near Chester, Illinois, for seven weeks, and arrived here at noon yesterday.

Harry I. Himmelberger of Cape Girardeau is elected to membership on the board of supervisors of the Little River Drainage District at the board's regular meeting at the district's office in the H.-H. Building; he succeeds Mark Martin, who resigned after moving recently to Elkhorn, Nebraska.

1915

Morton W. Randol, a lieutenant at the post office, has moved to West Broadway into the house where L. Ramey and his family lived; the Rameys have moved to 237 N. Lorimier St.

After holding the lead throughout the first half, the Normal School basketball boys fall to an energetic Christian Brothers College of St. Louis team, 20-17; coincidentally, the locals lost recently to the Carbondale, Illinois, Normal School team by the same score.

-- Sharon K. Sanders