Out of the past: Nov. 10

1993

The first public wrangling over how to pick a riverboat gambling vendor occurred last night during a joint meeting of the Cape Girardeau City Council and the Airport Advisory Board; Mayor Gene Rhodes recommended appointing a seven-person commission to establish a format for companies wanting to make a bid to the city; but his suggestions to fill that committee met with resistance from the council.

A drop in enrollment at Southeast Missouri State University this fall will result in a $500,000 to $600,000 shortfall in tuition revenue; Southeast's enrollment stands at 8,084 this fall, a drop of 360 from last year.

1968

The cornerstone for the new Masonic Temple near the Broadway-Kingshighway intersection is dedicated in the afternoon; members of all Masonic bodies in the city participate in the ceremony, during which the corn of plenty, the wine of joy and gladness, and the oil of peace are used to consecrate the structure; Elvis A. Mooney of Bloomfield, Missouri, grand master of Missouri Masons, leads the ceremony.

The earthquake that shook Cape Girardeau and several states yesterday was probably the strongest to hit the area in the past decade, says Louis Unfer of the State College earth science department; seismograph readings show the quake recorded a 5.5 on the 10-point Richter scale; most of the previous quakes felt here registered around 5 on the scale, the temblor on March 3, 1963, showing between the 5 and 5.5 mark, Unfer said.

1943

Although plans to lure another major league baseball club to Cape Girardeau for spring training alongside the St. Louis Browns have faded, there is still the possibility of making this town the training center for the Toledo Mudhens, the Browns' minor league farm club; if the Mudhens can be brought here, real games can be played during spring training, a thing which the Browns missed last season in their local camp with the exception of two tilts with the Lambert Field Wings.

L.A. Johnson has resigned his position as superintendent of Southeast Missouri Hospital because of ill health; he came to the hospital in 1938 from Kansas City, Missouri, and prior to that was head of a hospital in Des Moines, Iowa.

1918

Once more, the Spanish influenza epidemic causes the city fathers to suspend all church gatherings; there were 13 new cases of influenza reported Saturday, seven of them being at the Student Army Training Corps barracks, one at Leming Hall and the others scattered over the city; with the seven new cases at the barracks, there were a total of 66 cases of the disease under quarantine in Cape Girardeau.

Anna Koch of Cape Girardeau received a telegram from the War Department yesterday advising her that her son, Joseph F. Koch, had died in France on Oct. 19 from injuries he received in action on Sept. 28.

-- Sharon K. Sanders