Out of the past: Jan. 12

2000

Cord Dobrowski, partner in the Presswick Group, believes planning for a new golf course in Cape Girardeau is a win-win situation; the group has two parcels of land it is considering: a 770-acre site with mile-long access to Bloomfield Road and a 525-acre site north of the city near 5-H Animal Ranch.

Six-year-old Jacob Morrison probably won’t be putting his money where his mouth is ever again; as the Jackson Elementary School road home on a bus recently, he put a quarter in his mouth, which got stuck in his throat and kept him from breathing; alerted by other children, the bus driver pulled onto the shoulder of the road, where Missouri Highway Patrol Cpl. Greg Kenley came to the rescue; he drove the youngster in his patrol car from a half-mile outside of Gordonville to Saint Francis Medical Center in three minutes; there, emergency room personnel induced vomiting, and Jacob spat out his milk money.

1975

Stephen Tharp, pastor of Caney Fork Baptist Church, is ordained at Red Star Baptist Church in Cape Girardeau in the afternoon; Tharp, a student at Southeast Missouri State University, has pastored Caney Fork Church for the past three months; he is the son of the Rev. and Mrs. Earl Tharp of De Soto; the Rev. Earl Tharp is former past of Red Star Church.

School administrators and Board of Education members called figures “very good” when bids were opened Friday on the proposed construction of an addition to the Cape Girardeau Vocational-Technical School; apparent low base figures on general work, electrical, heating, ventilating and air condition totaled $368,200.

1950

N. Burton Short is the first party candidate in Cape Girardeau County to file for office, subject to the August primary election; as a first-term Circuit Court clerk, he is seeking to succeed himself in that office; Short is a Republican.

Harry Culp opens the Cape County Independent Abstracting Co., with office at 516 Broadway; working in the office here is Betty Campbell Cobb, who formerly was employed for number of years in the Bowman Bros. real estate office; Culp formerly for 8 1/2 years was with Home Abstract Co. in Cape Girardeau, and the past three years has been manager of an abstracting firm at Edwardsville, Illinois.

1925

Announcement of the merger of the Southeast Missouri Joint Stock Land Bank in Cape Girardeau with the St. Louis Joint Stock Land Bank of St. Louis is made at the headquarters of the local company here; stockholders in the local bank, which was organized two years ago with a capital stock of $250,000, are to be given the option of cash settlements for their stock or stock in the St. Louis bank.

Fifteen hundred acres of Stoddard County farmland, valued at more than $100,000, and a St. .Louis apartment house figure in a trade announced here; under the deal, the Himmelberger-Harrison Lumber Co. becomes the owner of the apartment house at 5574 Waterman Ave., and Jacob L. Babler, St. Louis insurance man and former Republican national committeeman, takes over the land located on Cline’s Island; the apartment house contains 30 six-room apartments and was erected only a year ago; the land purchased by Babler is some of the best in Stoddard County.

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.