Out of the past: Dec. 30

1999

Hospitals in Cape Girardeau are turning to extra staff to help patients who have poured into emergency rooms over the past few days complaining of coughs, fevers, sore throats and other influenza-type symptoms; emergency rooms at both Saint Francis Medical Center and Southeast Hospital have been overrun by patients, along with offices at Intermediate Health Care in Cape Girardeau; more than 600 confirmed cases of influenza have been diagnosed in Missouri.

Harold M. LaFont of Plainview, Texas, is in Cape Girardeau this week visiting his niece, Nancy Nussbaum Robinson, and her husband, Van; at 92, LaFont, formerly of Cape Girardeau, is the oldest practicing lawyer in Texas.

1974

Susie Miller, a senior at Notre Dame High School, was crowned 1974 Christmas Queen during coronation ceremonies recently at the school; Miller was elected by popular vote of the student body from a field of six candidates.

Custodis Construction Co. of Chicago, the same company that built it in 1936, detonates explosives at the base of the old Marquette Cement Co. smokestack, bringing down the 350-foot chimney with a thunderous crash; 20 seconds after Jack Quigley lights the fuse to the dynamite, an explosion rips the old monument from its pedestal; the smoke crumbles and topples over in large clouds of dust.

1949

Three months ahead of the scheduled time, Cape Girardeau becomes sole owner of its parking meters; the official action is taken by the City Council in the morning, when it approves final payment of $3,240 to the Magee-Hale Park-O-Meter Co. in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; hereafter, the city will keep all receipts from the meters.

A petition urging Cape Girardeau city officials to exercise their position as trustees over Courthouse Park and refuse to exchange the park for other property in the city was filed yesterday with Mayor Walter H. Ford; the petition was developed by J.W. Gerhardt, who wrote in a cover letter that it was the wish of the petitioners that the document be filed and carefully preserved as a matter of record for future inspection; the petition bears 508 signatures.

1924

The ferryboat Edna of Chester, Illinois, stuck fast in shore ice at the Cape Girardeau wharf, is in grave danger of being destroyed; the boat has been held tightly in the ice for a week or more, and since the narrow crust along the shore here formed, the river has dropped several feet, leaving the boat high and dry; it is feared that when the ice blockade near Ste. Genevieve breaks, the ice and water will move down the Mississippi River rapidly, sweeping everything before it, including the Edna.

Wheat prices in Cape Girardeau have reached $1.70 per bushel, the highest level registered here since 1920, when the price ranged between $1.60 and $1.70; as a result of the inflated prices, flour is selling here at $10.50 a barrel, wholesale; the price of a 25-pound sack is about $1.20 wholesale; a shortage of wheat is prevalent throughout the world.

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.