Out of the past: Oct. 21

1995

Allied Waste Management has been given the OK by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to close the former Jackson landfill and open a transfer station in town; DNR approved the closure of the landfill last week, clearing the way for Allied and Jackson to finalize a real estate deal that will enable the proposed transfer station to be built near the Jackson Industrial Park.

Shoppers sway to the sound of jazz at West Park Mall; KRCU, the Southeast Missouri State University public radio station, holds a jazz fest to promote the station's jazz programming; the Southeast Missouri State University Jazz Band and a smaller ensemble, Faculty Three and Friends, perform at Center Court.

1970

Details of an audit released yesterday show the operation of the Chester, Illinois, toll bridge is profitable and indicate the tolls could be eliminated or greatly reduced much sooner than the 1989 date given by the bridge commission; Missouri State Rep. Vernon Bruckerhoff of St. Marys has called for the bridge to be freed Jan. 1, 1971.

A major part of Southeast Missouri history will disappear -- and some city officials believe their communities will suffer -- if the Missouri Pacific Railroad receives Interstate Commerce Commission approval to abandon its 101-year-old branch line between Whitewater and Bismarck; the railroad filed a petition with the ICC seeking abandonment of the 65-mile stretch through Cape Girardeau, Bollinger, Ste. Francois and Madison counties.

1945

There isn't a single parcel of Methodist property in the Cape Girardeau district left under indebtedness, it was revealed in the annual report submitted at the St. Louis Conference sessions in St. Louis by the district superintendent, the Rev. Robert C. Holliday of Cape Girardeau; during the year, $8,373 in indebtedness, all that remained, was paid off; the final church to pay off its debt was Maple Avenue Methodist here, liquidating obligations aggregating $3,543.

An early morning electrical and rainstorm behaves freakishly in one residential section of Cape Girardeau, soundly scaring residents; lightning, "hopping about like a xylophone player," burns 10 openings in a telephone cable on Perry Avenue, putting 50 phones out of commission, burns out a radio set in one dwelling and gives filling station operator Hubert Steinhoff the scare of his life, when the freakish disturbance sends a "ball of fire" rolling right down Broadway.

1920

City Commissioner Dr. C.E. Schuchert has been busy this week testing scales and, according to his report, only one was found out of balance to amount to anything; Schuchert is of the opinion that Cape Girardeau needs a system of city scales operated by weigh masters who are under bond; the city would own the scales and have them at different parts of the city; in this way the weighing could be done without inconvenience to those hauling products and then the seller and the buyer could be assured of a "square deal."

I. Ben Miller celebrated the formal opening of his great new dairy barn last evening in the presence of a few guests, who saw superintendent Charles Willer lead into the "palace" 22 heifers and assign them to their stanchions.

-- Sharon K. Sanders