Out of the past: Jan. 5

2000

The General Service Administration plans to hire an architectural firm this year to design a new federal courthouse for Cape Girardeau; Dennis Miller, project manager for the GSA in Fort Worth, Texas, says they hope to have an architectural contract awarded within the next two to three months; Congress in recent years has appropriated $6 million to buy land in old Happy Hollow, near Independence and Frederick streets, and design the building.

CHARLESTON – Almost three years after it was destroyed by an arson fire, the Mississippi County Courthouse is open and again home to county government; County Clerk Herbert “Junior” DeLay says employees have been moving into the $2.5 million building for the last four weeks; offices officially opened Monday.

1975

Lt. John D. May is the new commanding officer of the Cape Girardeau Naval Reserve Center; May assumed command from Lt. Cmdr. James W. Dowdy in ceremonies Saturday morning; principal speaker at the ceremony was Capt. James Farney, commanding officer of Force Area Command Staff 5412, Naval and Marine Reserve Center, St. Louis.

Ruth E. Smith Rose of Cape Girardeau, a longtime community leader who devoted many years of service to Southeast Hospital, died Saturday afternoon at Southeast, where she had been a patient several days; a member of the Southeast Hospital Board of Trustees since November 1972, when she was elected to fill the unexpired term of Gladys B. Stiver, Rose had a long association with the hospital, beginning with the reorganization of its auxiliary in 1958; she was the widow of Dr. Forrest H. Rose.

1950

Although no routes are closed in the immediate Cape Girardeau vicinity, traffic moves at a snail’s pace over sleet-covered streets and highways, and there is some disruption of local telephone communication as the area shivers in its first real winter weather of the season; sleet began falling before noon yesterday, following a few hours of muggy, rainy weather; it blanketed all of Southeast Missouri as well as the rest of the state and surrounding states with from 1 to 3 inches of frozen slugs.

Trains of the Cotton Belt Railroad are being routed through Cape Girardeau, after the ends of two bridges were washed out on Missouri Pacific tracks near Fountain, Illinois, which are used jointly by that carrier and the Cotton Belt; pilings under the bridges were damaged by high water in the small streams they cross.

1925

Nineteen ex-service men have requested forms upon which to apply for the government bonus since the appearance in Saturday’s Southeast Missourian of an article stating that less than half of the veterans in Cape Girardeau County have submitted paperwork for the bonuses; the blanks, according to E.H.G. Wilson, may be obtained from the local post office, the Red Cross or American Legion.

Workers are placing the base or pedestal for the World War memorial to be erected in the courthouse lawn in Jackson to the memory of Cape Girardeau County’s soldier dead; on a concrete base, the white marble pedestal will bear a tablet with the names of all county boys who died in service, either in action or overseas, or in camp in this country; above this plate will stand the life-size figure of a soldier “at rest”, carved from white marble.

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.