Out of the past: March 21

1992

CAIRO, Ill. -- Cairo Mayor James Wilson is requesting a special contingent of Illinois State Police to be stationed in Cairo to help the city control a rampant drug problem. In a letter to Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, Wilson wrote: "The people of the city of Cairo are under siege by drug-trafficking gangs from throughout the country."

James P. Limbaugh yesterday announced Southeast Missouri State University's capital campaign has exceeded its goal of $25 million. As of February 1992, the campaign has raised in gifts and pledges a total of $25,137,000.

1967

"This is a fine day for Cape Girardeau," Mayor J. Ronald Fischer exclaims in the evening as he signs the first copy of a contract for construction of a 6,500-foot runway at the municipal airport. The city contracts with Gammon, Barter and Zeller Construction Co. of Keokuk, Iowa, to build the runway.

Fire extensively damages the rear of a two-story brick building at 429 Broadway in the evening. George Reeves is credited with saving the building from destruction. He was on his way to his wife's beauty shop upstairs when a small boy ran up to him, yelling, "Fire." Reeves followed the boy to the back of the building, where he found a number of packing crates ablaze. He ran across Broadway and called firefighters.

1942

A plan of extending assistance to expectant mothers, put into effect through the operation of the medical-service clinic on Main Street, has proved is worth in the year it has been in operation. There has been only one death at birth of an infant recorded in the 50 born to mothers who have received care at the clinic in the 12-month period.

Man, stripped of his automobile tires, told he can't have typewriters and verbally abused by his wife because he didn't buy a new refrigerator before manufacturing was ordered stopped, is assured of one thing: He won't have to go barefooted. Shoe-repair shops here say there is plenty of rubber and leather on hand to secure half-soles and repair his shoes.

1917

Cape Girardeau is to have its local freight rates raised by the Frisco Railroad on April 1. The rate between Cape Girardeau and Chicago has been increased on each class about 8 cents a hundred pounds. A railroad man, who is in a position to know, says the Frisco is putting another heavy increase on the rates because Cape Girardeau never complains.

Benjamin Dietrich, who has been in Texas three months or more, returned home last night and is again at his office with the Blue Ribbon Coal and Ice Co.

-- Sharon K. Sanders