Out of the past: March 11

1996

A group of Cape Girardeau residents will petition the Cape Girardeau City Council to recommend the federal government build a new federal courthouse on the block of old Saint Francis Hospital; supporters of the plan expect to submit petitions bearing more than 1,000 signatures at a public hearing tomorrow night at City Hall; the Haarig Area Development Association wants the government to tear down the vacant, vandalized hospital building at 825 Good Hope and five houses on the edge of the block.

COMMERCE, Mo. -- It will take more than rising waters and a flood buyout program to make Bobby Kight leave his home; Kight is one of five Commerce residents who attends a public meeting to discuss resurrecting the Scott County river town; despite the small turnout for the meeting, the town hopes to rebuild.

1971

A truck owned by a Cape Girardeau stereo and radio equipment distributor who operates in Southern Illinois is blown up at his son's home in East Cape Girardeau, Illinois, early in the morning, resulting in heavy damage to the son's house and destruction of his car; the blast shakes the home of Larry Abbott, breaking windows and destroying a breezeway carport under which his car is parked; the truck, owned by Abbott's father, Virgil Abbott, owner of Sound Track Music, 32 S. Sprigg St., is destroyed.

Cape Girardeau County Court hears a request from a representative of National Advertising Co. of Argo, Illinois, to authorize placement of outdoor advertising signs along Interstate 55 from the south line of the county to its present terminus near Fruitland; signs along this 15-mile stretch of highway erected after Jan. 1, 1968, and not within 1,000 feet of the business advertised, are apparently illegal.

1946

Plans are being made for construction by the Missouri Utilities Co. of a 7-mile rural electric line to serve a group of about 30 farmers in the area southwest of the intersection highways 61 and 25 at Jackson; six poles will be needed on the Emil J. Kies farm, and from one pole up on the farms of J.W. Priest, W.J. Brinkopf, George L. Hampton and Rudy Brinkman.

Bob Burns, recently appointed dog catcher in Cape Girardeau, did a thriving business over the weekend, capturing 17 animals; three were claimed up to this morning by the owners, each paying a fee of $2.

1921

Going into the basement of his women's clothing store on Main Street to rebuild the fire in the furnace, Louis Hecht finds the furnace room filled with smoke; upon discovering the fire, Hecht runs next door to Mack's Clothing Store, instructing George Richards, store proprietor, to sound the alarm; damage is slight, as the fire doesn't reach the main floor; the goods damaged are the new spring stock, which is insured.

Luther, Herbert and Willie Little and Ralph Brashear -- the quartet held for the murder of Cape Girardeau patrolman Willis A. Martin on Feb. 27 -- plead not guilty when arraigned before Justice of the Peace Gust Schultz in the morning; they will remain in jail without bond to await action of the circuit court.

-- Sharon K. Sanders