Out of the past: Jan. 13

1993

Twenty-one buildings, most of them houses, will soon be razed as the first phase of demolition work gets underway on the new Mississippi River bridge route project; the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission awarded a nearly $26,000 demolition contract Friday to Amy's Trucking Service of Cape Girardeau.

Flu-like symptoms are being blamed for a wave of absences at two Cape Girardeau elementary schools; a third of May Greene School's 220 pupils were absent yesterday, and 12 more are sent home today; the news isn't quite as bad at Franklin School, where 70 of the school's 405 students were absent yesterday.

1968

David Minnen, one of the founders of the B'Nai Israel Synagogue congregation and who had been a business man in Cape Girardeau for about 50 years, died yesterday in a Cape Girardeau hospital; Minnen, 67, had been president of the Jewish congregation here for 25 years.

The Cape Girardeau area received three inches of snow yesterday afternoon and night, heavily coating the streets and piling in drifts from a steady wind of 14 to 18 knots; another two to four inches of snow is expected later today.

1943

Cape Girardeau is facing a serious housing shortage; real estate dealers and Chamber of Commerce officials point out that something must be done to provide dwellings and apartments for the rapidly expanding personnel at Harris Field, the new Army aviation training center here, and to provide for serving the general demand for living quarters.

Farmers and their wives from all parts of Cape Girardeau County attended 10 war mobilization meetings Tuesday to hear government suggestions on how to get record food and general farm production in 1943; without exception, the 775 persons in attendance were enthusiastic about doing an even better job than they did in 1942, in turning out food for military and civilian needs.

1918

Pneumonia has laid low one of Jackson's young men, Thomas F. Spradling, who volunteered for military service a month ago; several days ago, he contracted pneumonia and was removed to a hospital in St. Louis, where he died Saturday night.

Thomas M. Williams, formerly of Cape Girardeau, now a national bank examiner in charge of the force of examiners traveling from district headquarters at Kansas City, Missouri, has been dispatched by the federal reserve bank there to take charge of the Camp Funston bank; four men were murdered there Friday evening and a fifth badly hacked by an army captain who robbed the bank.

-- Sharon K. Sanders