Out of the past: Feb. 6

2000

​First Presbyterian Church in Cape Girardeau observes 75 years of participation in Scouting at the morning worship service; the 24 members of Boy Scout Troop 4 and Cub Pack 15, sponsored by the church, are honored; Troop 4 was chartered May 1, 1924, and is the oldest continuously chartered troop in the area; Pack 15 was chartered in 1960; Bill Wickham, who served as Scoutmaster for 25 years, is also honored.

Antique farm equipment — about 500 pieces — are being moved from the American Heritage Museum building alongside Interstate 55 across from the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport to the Stars and Stripes Museum at Bloomfield; the equipment has been stored in a warehouse north of Scott City for the past decade; Gene Rhodes, a Cape Girardeau businessman and former mayor, has donated all of the equipment to the Stars and Stripes Museum.

1975

​The City of Cape Girardeau adds a new angle to the county jail controversy by proposing to the County Court that it build a joint jail facility with the city on the South Sprigg Street property where a new Cape Girardeau jail is planned; but Presiding Judge Ervin Hobbs and Associate Judge Edwin W. Sander express concern that a jail in Cape Girardeau would create a transportation problem to and from magistrate and circuit courts in Jackson; Sander also says construction of a county jail in Cape Girardeau would renew Jackson fears that the entire county courthouse operation would be moved to Cape Girardeau.

A group of residents of an area just outside the northeast city limits appeared before the Cape Girardeau City Council last night to state opposition to any possibility of being taken into the corporate limits of the city; the concern was prompted by an address made by Mayor Howard C. Tooke at a Cape West Rotary Club meeting Thursday, in which he said he thought annexation should be a subject of discussion.

1950

​Practically all electrical service is back in operation, and rapid recovery is being made by the telephone company in its effort to rebound from last seek’s ice storm; most of the ice melted over the weekend, as the temperatures soared well above freezing Sunday.

SIKESTON — Only 150 of 6,500 individual customers remain without electricity in the six-county area served by the Scott-New Madrid-Mississippi Electric Cooperative, but they have been promised that all service will be restored by tonight, or no later than noon tomorrow; the electric co-op, among those most severely stricken by last week’s ice storm, suffered damages estimated at between $25,000 and $50,000.

1925

​A shake-up in the Cape Girardeau Police Department is threatened as city officials prepare to enlarge the force in order to take care of additional territory annexed at the recent election; Mayor James A. Barks, head of the police department and with the support of City Commissioners Roy Brissenden and Martin Krueger, is expected to call a conference within the next few days of all patrolmen and city detectives; he will demand more efficiency and cooperation among the men than has been given in the past.

With the recent annexation of territories to the north and south of Cape Girardeau, the city’s school district territory has also been extended beyond it’s previous boundaries; the new territory will include parts of two other school districts, the Rock Levee on the south and the Juden district on the north; by this addition, 127 children will be added to the Cape Girardeau public schools.

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.