Out of the past: March 15

1991

Dr. Shelton E. Smith, one of the two finalists for superintendent of the Cape Girardeau Public Schools, visited the district yesterday, talking with administrators, teachers and parents. Smith is superintendent of the Dunklin R-5 schools in Jefferson County, Missouri.

A local "crew" will be traveling to Florida early next month to watch Oak Ridge astronaut Linda Godwin's space shuttle blast into space. Godwin is one of a crew of five who will fly aboard Atlantis. They will launch the Gamma Ray Observatory.

1966

The Cape Girardeau School Board last night approved an application to the Department of Education to designate the district's vocational school as an area vocational facility, which would enable it to provide such training to other nearby high schools.

Ryland "Dutch" Meyr has been confirmed as head football coach at Central High School. Bob Goodwin had resigned that post, but will remain as head basketball coach.

1941

The Rock Hill Methodist Church on the Greens Ferry Road, three miles northeast of Jackson, was destroyed by fire last night. The frame building was the original structure at that location, being built about 1912. No regular services had been conducted in the church for more than a year.

Mrs. W.C. LaPierre, wife of the former deputy internal revenue collector, says she plans to file as a mayoral candidate at Jackson. If she wins the post, LaPierre would be the town's first mayor since Jackson was established in 1815.

1916

Fire starting at 6:30 a.m. destroys the L.B. Houck office and business building at the southeast corner of Broadway and Main Street. With the building goes the newly furnished and equipped store of the Buckner-Ragsdale Co. The flames sweep into the Terminal Hotel building adjourning the Houck building, gutting it. The fire reaches across Broadway to the ancient Riverview Hotel, which is slowly eaten away by the flames. The two saloons of Claud Speak, one in the corner of the Houck building and the other in the Riverview building, are destroyed, as is the millinery store of Mrs. Florence Boone, just south of the Buckner-Ragsdale store. It is the biggest fire Cape Girardeau has ever suffered.

While flames are doing their damage downtown, fire breaks out in the home of L.G. Dillman on North Henderson Avenue, burning it to the ground. Dillman is downtown witnessing the conflagration when his house burns.

-- Sharon K. Sanders