Out of the past: March 10

1992

Cape Girardeau residents likely will see increased fees for city services and programs over the next several years; the city administrative staff last night told city council members the fee increases are needed to make such programs more self-sufficient.

The Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority now has a barge-fleeting service at its port on the Mississippi River 5 miles southeast of Cape Girardeau; the fleet is operated under an agreement with Cape Girardeau Fleeting Inc. of Cape Girardeau.

1967

The city's new Municipal Airport Board ordinance, adopted Wednesday night, makes the relationship between the board and the city council more explicit and restores to the board some of the initiative on such matters as contracts and leases; the council in May adopted an ordinance changing the board's status to advisory.

Raymond T. Roth of Illmo, a National Guard officer, has been promoted to lieutenant colonel and assigned as executive officer of the 135th Engineer Group headquartered at Cape Girardeau.

1942

The boiler in the county-farm heating plant explodes in the morning, ruining the unit and leaving the entire county home without heat. No one is injured, as the explosion occurs before the inmates are awake.

E.M. Gould of Cape Girardeau, who returned home Jan. 12 after eight months in Ireland, where he worked on a construction job for U.S. naval bases, is leaving again. Within the next week or 10 days, he will leave for the Panama Canal Zone, where he will be engaged in construction work at Gatun Lock.

1917

Another example of the grave mistake the mayor made when he and five members of the city council bought a too-heavy firefighting engine is shown early in the morning, when the home of George Hill in Marble City Heights burns. A light machine easily could have driven down the lane in which the house was located and the suction hose dropped into a cistern; the big truck, however, was driven out North Sprigg Street as far as the hill in front of the Tom Williams home and there stopped. The firemen wouldn't attempt to drive the machine down the alley lest it again get mired up or break down. Instead, they walked to the scene of the fire and assisted in a futile bucket brigade.

The Jackson street commissioner is making preparations to place "runners" on the west bridge, it being the last one in the city to be so supplied. Placing heavy timbers on the floor of the bridge the long way makes a wonderful difference; automobiles hardly jar the structure at all.

-- Sharon K. Sanders