Out of the past: Sept. 19

1992

The 137th edition of the SEMO District Fair wraps up with a crowd of more than 2,400 fans in the evening to hear Billy Dean perform. While other fairs across the country experienced attendance dips due to economic hard times, the local exposition grew this year, ending with 81,200 in attendance. Good weather and the appearance of first lady Barbara Bush are credited with the 2,100-person increase over last year.

For the sixth time in less than a year, vandals have struck Old Lorimier Cemetery. The latest incident occurred last week, even as a protective security fence is being erected around the cemetery. At least 15 grave markers were damaged, some of them severely.

1967

A tentative plan to improve the flow of traffic on Broadway from U.S. 61 to Frederick Street by combining a four-lane section with one-way portions of that street and Bellevue is announced by the State Highway Department.

While the city council last night painted a dark picture for the proposed low-cost housing issue, A.D. Price, chairman of the Public Housing Authority here, says his board won't stop its efforts to improve housing in Cape Girardeau. The council first tabled any action on the cooperative agreement with the housing authority and then moved to study further the proposal of the Central Trades and Labor Council of Cape Girardeau for its privately financed and controlled housing project.

1942

Boom days are back in Illmo and Fornfelt. There was a mild revival when the Cotton Belt and Missouri Pacific railroads and the two Ely-Walker factories began running at top speed some time ago, but when work was started on the Texas-Illinois pipeline, it stuffed the twin cities entirely full. Some 400 men are working out of the pipeline field office in Illmo.

The federal government has given approval for construction of a concrete drive from Broadway to Lorimier and Fairmount cemeteries, Mayor R.E. Beckman says.

1917

A deal is pending for the sale of Charles Kaess' bakery on Good Hope Street. Frank Unnerstall, a former baker of Cape Girardeau who is now located in Morley, Missouri, is here looking the Kaess place over and tells several friends in Haarig he may buy the bakery. Kaess, who is a city councilman, left here two weeks ago to take a job at a rubber factory in Akron, Ohio.

About 250 men from four Southeast Missouri counties meet in Cape Girardeau in the afternoon on their way to Fort Riley, Kansas, where they will enter Camp Funston for training for the first national Army. The men came from Dunklin, Scott, Stoddard and Pemiscot counties.

-- Sharon K. Sanders