Out of the past: May 14

1993

Despite the rainy weather, construction work on the Cape LaCroix Creek-Walker Branch flood-control project continues; as of April 29, the contractor -- Dumey Excavation and Brenda Kay Construction Inc. of Oran, Missouri -- has completed 70 percent of the work on the first phase of the project, which involves channel improvements along Cape LaCroix Creek from south of Bloomfield Road north to Arena Park.

General Sign Co. of Cape Girardeau and Universal Sign Co. of St. Louis have entered into a sales agreement benefiting both companies; General Sign has the ability to produce large electric signs, while Universal has the sales staff to sell them; General Sign has not been sold.

1968

Bonnie Zook, a sophomore at Cape Girardeau Central High School, and Thomas W. Headrick, a Sikeston (Missouri) High senior, depart from the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport for Detroit and the Science Fair International; the regional science fair winners are accompanied by their high school sponsors, Bill Wilkison of Sikeston and John Rigdon of Central High, as well as three other adults.

Work on the new Procter & Gamble Paper Products plant near Neelys Landing started Monday with some site clearing; eight railroad carloads of earth-moving equipment are on the Frisco Railroad siding near the plant site waiting to be unloaded.

1943

After a stoppage of 15 days, a force of about 100 men employed on the George C. Bolz Dredging Co. project at the river near Gray's Point go back to work; the men, all members of local unions, including the operating engineers and laborers, had left the Bolz job in protest of work being done in Scott County on the pipeline on an open-shop basis by the Hobson Dunn Co. and the Oil States Construction Co.

Dallman Garth Sides of the Neelys Landing community was killed in action in the North Africa fighting April 3, according to a War Department message sent to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Linus Sides, formerly of Neelys Landing, but now both employed in war work in Kansas City, Missouri.

1918

District Engineer W.B. Barry of the Frisco Railroad visits the flooded country just south of Cape Girardeau in the morning and finds the water is rapidly receding; he believes the railroad should be able to start operating trains to the south again tomorrow.

The 18 men making up the latest contingent of war draftees were to depart from Jackson, but cannot leave by the Iron Mountain Railroad because of washouts; instead, they are driven to Cape Girardeau in automobiles and catch the afternoon Frisco for St. Louis.

-- Sharon K. Sanders