Out of the past: July 20

1991

A multi-million dollar professional office/retail complex will house its first occupant here by September 1992; Health Services Corp. of America is building the $7 million-plus complex on the six-acre tract it owns along Mount Auburn Road, between Doctors Park and West Park Mall.

After more than three years of negotiations, the city of Cape Girardeau has reached an agreement with Union Electric Co. to acquire its water system and to renew gas and electric franchises for 20 years

1966

Cape Girardeau police are investigating a shoplifting case involving the theft of rings from Margraf Jewelry on Broadway, valued at $350, one of a series of such incidents in the area; however, police chief Irvin E. Beard denies such an investigation is underway, although the incident was reported to police Friday; Beard said, "There has been no shoplifting in Cape Girardeau. It is just gossip and scuttlebutt."

The Cape Girardeau City Council adopts the preliminary budget as the final one after amending it to add $11,604 in expenditures for the fiscal year; the council includes the provision for a full-time recreation director.

1941

Laverne Williams, for three years director of the Wesley Foundation at McMurray College, Abilene, Texas, has arrived here and will assume her duties this week as director of the Wesley Foundation, coordinating the work in Centenary Methodist Church for Methodist students at the Teachers College.

Thirty-two officers of the Sixth Missouri Infantry hold their regimental staff meeting at the office of Capt. J. Grant Frye, making plans that will enable the entire personnel of the nine companies of the Missouri Reserve Military Force to mobilize on a moment's notice.

1916

The day for systematic garbage removal has dawned; the officers of the Women's Civic Improvement Association have arranged for a daily collection of the sort of garbage that is perishable; a man will call once daily at all the houses notifying the association and get the accumulations from the cans and haul it away; the edible refuse will feed the pigs on the lower farm of St. Vincent's College.

During the rain and electrical storm yesterday afternoon, lightning struck the barn of John Steeg, a farmer living several miles south of Egypt Mills, and the building was burned to the ground with a total loss; two teams of horses and the wagons they were hitched to were all that was saved.

-- Sharon K. Sanders