Out of the past: Dec. 2

1999

It’s been slow going on the Mississippi River bridge at Cape Girardeau this week, but motorists are taking it in stride; a Missouri Department of Transportation crew began making more repairs to the span Tuesday; the work has reduced a section of the bridge to one lane during the day, creating traffic delays.

Steve Ketelsen, who has been with Wood and Huston Bank since 1991, decided to make a career change and has resigned as president and chief executive officer; Ketelsen joined the bank at 111 S. Broadview as vice president in charge of consumer lending and was named president in March 1996; Don Brown, president of Wood and Huston Bank at Marshall, home office of four Wood and Huston banking facilities, is here to oversee operations until a new president is named.

1974

Snow may have caused a few changes in plans, but dedication of a new wing and commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Oak Ridge High School came off almost as scheduled Saturday with approximately 750 persons attending; the inclement weather forced the dedication of a new wing for industrial arts and music classes from outside to inside the school and grounded a plane at Jefferson City which was to bring Secretary of State James C. Kirkpatrick to Oak Ridge to deliver the centennial and dedicatory address; Dr. Fred B. Goodwin, chairman of the Division of Languages and Literature at Southeast Missouri State University, filled in for him.

An early morning fire levels a barn on the Richard G. Schmidt farm along Highway 61 west of Shawneetown; the blaze claims the lives of five Appaloosa horses and a steer and destroys about 2,000 bales of hay

1949

Rebuilding of the road leading from Highway 34 to the town of Burfordville and its historic covered bridge is underway, with State Highway Department crews being used; the road leading to the bridge and the bridge itself have been designated as a part of the highway system and will be maintained by the state; an entrance to the town is being made on the west side connecting with Highway 34; the road through town is being rebuilt and the road bed raised from 2 1/2 feet to 3 feet to get it above the high water mark of floods of Whitewater Creek.

The Curtis Jaco residence at Delta is destroyed by an early-morning fire, with the family fleeing through a window minutes before the four-room frame structure collapses, a mass of flaming ruins; Mrs. Jaco, who suffers painful burns on her arms, is confined to bed, and her husband’s hair is burned; neither of their children, Paul, 11, nor Stella, 16, is injured.

1924

Freezing weather has caused the suspension of Cape Girardeau’s big street paving project for this year, after the laying of nearly three miles of concrete slab at a cost of $130,000; following the completion of a block on Henderson, from Harmony to Broadway, and then finishing of a short strip on West End Boulevard, north of Broadway, the contractors have placed their machines in the shed for repairs and will prepare to get an early start in 1925.

A request is to be made of the Cape Special Road District to erect a barrier around the lake at Hely’s quarry, on South Kingshighway, to prevent a recurrence of the near-tragedy there Sunday, when two young motorists narrowly escaped death when their automobile plunged over the cliff and into the icy lake waters; the lake, which boarders on the paved highway, has been considered a menace for some time; two years ago, Arthur Smith, a truck driver, met death when his automobile plunged into the lake.

Southeast Missourian librarian Sharon Sanders compiles the information for the daily Out of the Past column. She also writes a weekend column called “From the Morgue” that showcases interesting historical stories from the newspaper.