Out of the past: Oct. 4

1998

Cornerstone Church, filled to near capacity each Sunday at its facility at 298 N. West End Blvd., holds a groundbreaking service for a new building at 933 Koch St., following its regular morning worship; the new building will be on 11.5 acres already owned by the church; Cornerstone, founded in 1991, purchased the land three years ago; the property abuts the Shawnee Parkway.

Sky-tober Fest Skydiving Boogie kicks off amid cloudy skies at Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, with pilot Mike Mullins ferrying skydivers throughout the day in a King Air; admission is free to spectators; tandem jumps with a skydiving instruct may be reserved for a fee; the boogie will attract around 100 skydivers.

1973

Eddie Webb, 1973.Southeast Missourian archive

Eddie Webb, 1973.Southeast Missourian archive

An encounter with an unidentified flying object near Cape Girardeau has left a Greenville, Missouri, truck driver shaken over what he claims he saw in the two to three minutes before the unusual flashing lights disappeared; Eddie Webb, 45, a driver for Sam Tanksley Trucking Inc. of Cape Girardeau, says he was temporarily blinded by a flash after he observed a UFO on Interstate 55 just south of the Jackson exit at Wedekind Park; after receiving treatment at a local hospital and at an ophthalmologist's office, Webb is recuperating at his home. (Read more about Eddie Webb's close encounter in Fred Lynch's blog.)

Five Southeast Missouri cities are facing a power crisis, and how bad it may become hinges partially on the needs of Missouri Utilities Co. of Cape Girardeau; officials of Sikeston, Malden, New Madrid, Kennett and Campbell have begun looking for alternate sources of fuel to fire their electrical generating plants in the wake of a cutoff in the supply of natural gas; gas supplies to those towns were cut off by the Associated Natural Gas Co. of Blytheville, Arkansas, on Monday.

1948

There is expectation that bus service in towns of the district formerly served by Southeast Missouri Bus Lines will soon be re-inaugurated following approval Saturday by the Public Service Commission of sale of the carrier to R.C. Dickason of Jonesboro, Arkansas; the sale of the line, for $25,000, included the right to operate in the territory formerly served by Southeast; purchase was made from Jack Rister and Edward B. Fritts, co-owners.

The strike of truckers and warehouse workers at the Kroger Grocery Co. headquarters in Carbondale, Illinois, continued over the weekend with no change in the situation; the company's four stores in Cape Girardeau still have sufficient stock on hand and are open for business; painting and electrical work is being done at the new Kroger super-market on Broadway, but it's planned opening Tuesday has been postponed until the remainder of the merchandise is received.

1923

Charging that the suspension of steam train service over the Cape Girardeau Northern Railway between Cape Girardeau and Jackson would ruin their business and make it impossible for them to compete with outside companies, managers of concerns on the railroad line appealed to the Missouri Public Service Commission at a hearing yesterday to keep the service intact, or to provide a suitable substitute; operators of the C.G.N. are asking permission to suspend the service because it does not make returns large enough to meet the operating expenses of the 10 miles of the road.

The Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce has agreed to the terms of the Sells-Floto Circus to pay for license, lot and water so that the circus ends its season in Cape Girardeau; the agreement is that the circus will be here on a Monday, probably late this month, and that it will disband from here.

-- Sharon K. Sanders