Out of the past: Feb. 4

1998

Just after noon Tuesday, Division 3 Circuit Court clerk Earlene Sokolowski stood at the counter in Jones Drug Store buying Tylenol for a headache when she heard "a horrible noise"; as plate glass shattered and the floor rumbled, Sokolowski and others in and nearby the courthouse square store thought an earthquake had struck; actually, it was a Chrysler New Yorker driven by Paul Bollinger of Jackson; his foot slipped off the brake and onto the gas pedal as he parked the car in one of the diagonal spaces in front of the drug store; the car jumped the high curb and plowed completely into the left side of the 127-year-old building.

TAMMS, Ill. -- The first group of prisoners will arrive next month at Tamms Correctional Center; Gov. Jim Edgar yesterday dedicated the super maximum-security prison, which cost $73 million and will hold 500 prisoners; more than 200 people, including state Department of Corrections officials and prison wardens and county and city officials, watched Edgar snip a ribbon that officially opened the prison; it includes an adjacent 200-bed minimum-security work camp that opened in 1995.

1973

Connie Miller, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Miller of Cape Girardeau, is Notre Dame High School's homecoming queen; a three-year cheerleader and four-year pep club member, Miller is also a four-year veteran of the yearbook staff and has participated in four musicals presented at the school.

Shoe City, a retail shoe outlet, last week moved from its former location at 1027 Broadway to 628 Broadway to increase its services; owned by Kenneth Hamra, the store is expanding by adding varied lines of women's footwear and accessory lines, including purses, in addition to the lines of men's shoes it has carried; Terry and Joyce Campbell manage the outlet.

1948

During 1947, 14 cities in the United States switched from the commission form of government to the city manager form, a survey shows; Cape Girardeau now has the commission form and will vote Feb. 24 on a proposal to switch to the city manager form.

Assault waves of women -- and a few brave men -- storm the Hecht's store on Main Street by the hundreds, grabbing and snatching at bargains as they make the most of a sale brought on by the soaking of merchandise by a broken sprinkler pipe last week; clerks -- some 20 of them -- can do little but stand idly by on the outskirts of the crowds which knot about display racks and tables; their only function is to take garments as they are handed to them and carry them to the cash register.

1923

The Rev. R.L. Duckworth, who has been attending a religious meeting at Salem, Missouri, arrived here last night; he delivers a sermon at the morning services at Maple Avenue Methodist Church; Duckworth is the Sunday school director for the St. Louis conference.

Eight men dug 40 minutes uncovering the body of C. Volokie, 30, yesterday afternoon; Volokie, a concrete finisher for the J.J. Dunnegan Construction Co., was buried alive 14 feet below the surface of the earth in a sewer ditch while removing loose dirt for a drag line; he was killed instantly when the north side of a sewer ditch in which he was working on South Ellis Street caved in on him; Volokie was Belgian by birth and was a resident of Silvis, Illinois.

-- Sharon K. Sanders