Out of the past: Sept. 20

1993

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- The old brick high school building here, which has stood vacant for the past five years, is scheduled to be torn down this fall; the Chaffee Board of Education last week accepted the $29,000 bid submitted by J.W. Strack Construction of Cape Girardeau to demolish the 70-plus-year-old building.

Speaking at a Cape Girardeau City Council meeting, Charles E. Kupchella, a spokesman for a group of downtown homeowners, urges the council to adopt "as strong" a property maintenance code as possible.

1968

A large truck, whose brakes failed at Sprigg and William streets, avoids vehicles in the intersection and parked cars in a used car lot, but then crashes through the wall of a cleaning establishment, coming to rest where a woman had been standing seconds before; the owner of Crescent Cleaners, 132 S. Sprigg St., Fern Bollinger, says, "I missed being killed by the skin of my teeth..."

The third industrial strike in three months in Cape Girardeau begins in the morning with the walkout of approximately 200 employees of Atlas Plastics Corp.; two other strikes are still in progress; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local went on strike July 29 at Davis Electric Co., and IBEW Local 1601 employees of Superior Electric struck Aug. 18.

1943

Two convicts who yesterday afternoon escaped from the Illinois Penitentiary near Chester are apprehended by Cape Girardeau police, members of the Auxiliary Highway Patrol and a posse of citizens at noon in the vicinity of the cement plant.

Cape Girardeau surpasses its quota in the Third War Loan drive; Chairman Walter H. Oberheide reports that sales total $780,675, or $11,575 above the quota.

1918

Will Gerhardt and Vogelsang Bros., contractors, have received plans and specifications for the new Frisco depot to be built in Cape Girardeau; they have until Sept. 30 to bid for the work.

John A. Withers, the Allenville capitalist, recently purchased the Ponder home in the far west end of Cape Girardeau; he is having the house remodeled and decorated preparatory to moving into it.

-- Sharon K. Sanders