Out of the past: Jan. 30

1993

The Cape Girardeau City Council is considering acquiring 51 acres at the corner of Mount Auburn Road and Kingshighway, commencing a $4 million project to expand the city's parks and recreation facilities; the land would be used as a "general use community park."

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- State Rep. Mary Kasten is sponsoring a controversial welfare return bill this session, which has been criticized by some legislators and social-welfare groups for penalizing children and low-income families; under the bill, there would be no increased Aid For Dependant Children payment for additional children, a move designed to end an incentive for welfare mothers to have more children.

1968

In a special session Monday, Jackson City Council approved an ordinance setting up a retirement system for city employees; the action followed an informal meeting with employees Jan. 12, and a vote by city employees Jan. 24 which approved the plan, 39-3.

Sizes of schools, inadequate assessments and low-grade teaching are among problems discussed at a hearing on school district reorganization held at State College; Rep. James I. Spainhower, chairman of the Missouri School District Reorganization Commission, says excellence in education in Missouri is becoming less a realistic possibility because of inefficient and antiquated school districts.

1943

Certified as war work, the scrap rail removal job on Cape Girardeau's streets and the scrap metal collecting job with headquarters at Jackson are to be continued, announces Chester Treece, district construction supervisor for the WPA; they are the only construction jobs in the county.

Definite plans for lifting a 200-ton sunken barge from the river, near the Marquette Cement docks, for war scrap haven't been developed; a carload of scrap railroad steel, recently dug up at the cement plant, is to be shipped to a mill soon; also, a carload of other scrap iron was sent out from the plant a few days ago.

1918

CAIRO, Ill. -- The greatest damage to shipping ever known in this section has been inflicted on the Ohio River in the past 24 hours; it is estimated a million dollars worth of property has been destroyed; when the gorge broke at the mouth of the Tennessee River, the Ohio received a great flood of water, the seething and grinding mass of ice carrying an unknown number of river-going vessels downstream.

Cape Girardeau is finally to get a hearing by the Interstate Commerce Commission on the question of whether the Frisco Railroad should be made to live up to a contract with the city in which it agreed to give the city a rate of 60 cents per ton freight on coal from Illinois; after making the contract, the Frisco went back on its word and raised the rate to 90 cents a ton.

-- Sharon K. Sanders