Out of the past: May 3

1996

Loyd Ivey grew up dirt poor in Bollinger County, Missouri; he left home at 16 and made a fortune in high-tech electronics; now he wants to return to Marble Hill, Missouri, and build a 40,000- to 60,000-square-foot plant at the city's industrial park, adjacent to the local airport; the plant initially would employ 50 workers and ultimately about 200 people; Ivey also plans to build a home in the Marble Hill area; he hopes to move back to Bollinger County this year.

EAST CAPE GIRARDEAU, Ill. -- Improvements over seven miles of highways from East Cape Girardeau to Gale and McClure, Illinois, will be completed within a week; it is welcome news to motorists who have experienced frequent and lengthy traffic delays created by one-way traffic flow in construction zones; the contract, awarded more than a year ago, called for flood repair work from the Mississippi River bridge east on Route 146 to the intersection with Route 3, and on Route 3 from north of Gale to north of McClure; the intersection was raised about 8 inches.

1971

GALE, Ill. -- Work crews continue their efforts to clear wreckage from the second railroad track near here where 23 cars of Missouri Pacific freight train derailed Saturday afternoon; burning boxcars kept crews from moving in for about 11 hours following the accident, but by noon yesterday trains were again traveling over one of the double sets of tracks.

First National Bank of Cape Girardeau is designated depository for county funds for the next two years after bids are opened by the Cape County Court; the successful bidder proposed to pay the county 4.5% interest on funds less than $100,000 left in the bank less than 30 days; on amounts over $100,000, left in the bank at least 30 days, the interest to be paid is 6.75%; on amounts over $100,000 and left in the bank 180 days or longer, the interest rate will be 7%.

1946

As an order of the Office of Defense Transportation clamped a virtual embargo on railroad freight shipments, except for food and fuel, it is announced the Cape Girardeau plant of the Marquette Cement Mfg. Co. will be forced to suspend operations tomorrow night because of the shortage of coal brought about by the nationwide coal strike; officials say closing the plant is an expensive and inconvenient process; for the first time in many years, the fires in the kilns will be drawn, necessitating considerable repair work when operations resume.

Judge J. Henry Caruthers grants in Common Pleas Court a petition by the Ozark Trails Bridge Co. and Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., a bonding house, asking transfer to Federal Court of the city-county landowner injunction suit to restrain Alexander County, Illinois, from buying the traffic bridge.

1921

Mother Placide Keating, past mother superior of St. Vincent's Young Ladies' Academy, dies at 2 a.m. at the academy; she had been in failing health for some time; her friends are numbered by the score, both in Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area; she was born May 27, 1843, in Louisville, Kentucky, as Ella Keating.

The steamer Majestic opened the river excursion season at Cape Girardeau last evening, when a large number of Girardeans responded to an invitation to a sail down the river and a dance in the cabin to the music of the splendid orchestra the Majestic carries.

-- Sharon K. Sanders