Out of the past: Oct. 23

1992

Twenty-one people indicted by a Cape Girardeau County grand jury were arrested in sweeping drug raids yesterday that targeted the cocaine trade; the arrests culminate an 11-month-long investigation by the SEMO Drug Task Force and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

There are no rooms available at the hotels in Cape Girardeau, with innkeepers sending people to Perryville and Sikeston, Missouri, for Sunday through Wednesday bookings; all rooms are booked here those nights because of the Missouri Baptist Convention, which starts here Monday.

1967

Cape Girardeau police and firemen are investigating possible arson in two fires that destroyed a barn and shed in the 1200 block of North Kingshighway late last night; the blazes burned simultaneously; James Eaker, a building contractor, owned the barn, using it as storage for building materials; the shed was owned by Emil T. Meyer.

The board of trustees of Cape Osteopathic Hospital agrees to build its new facility at Chaffee, Missouri; the decision culminates two months of deliberation by the board concerning and offer from the Chaffee Chamber of Commerce and the Chaffee City Council; several years ago, the hospital made plans for a new 50-bed structure on a site south of Jefferson School.

1942

Dr. Richard Struna of Chicago, who has fought against Russia, been a Russian prisoner and come into conflict with the Gestapo in Czechoslovakia, is the headlining speaker at the morning program of the Southeast Missouri Teachers Association meeting; Struna predicts Hitler will be defeated in 1943.

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Their training plane crashing south of Sikeston yesterday afternoon, instructor Oliver Mutrux, 21, of Clayton, Missouri, and a student flyer, Roy W. Erickson, 22, of Chicago, were killed; the civilian instructor had taken the plane up from the airport training detachment here; in another training flight Tuesday, instructor Lowell C. Little, 41, of Richmond, Indiana, also from the training detachment in Sikeston, was killed in a crash near Bertrand, Missouri.

1917

State Auditor George E. Hackmann has sent out to the Confederate veterans pension vouchers to be filled out; while there are no funds to pay these pensions at present, the auditor wishes to have all the veterans have their claims on file if funds become available; in and near Jackson, there aren't more than a half dozen men who fought for the South in the Civil War, who have applied for and who are receiving a pension from the state.

An anonymous benefactor has donated 100 new juvenile books to the Cape Girardeau Public Library.

-- Sharon K. Sanders