Out of the past: Oct. 8

1999

​Burlap to Cashmere, a Brooklyn band with an unusual sound, headlines the evening opening of the City of Roses Music Festival in downtown Cape Girardeau; the band plays at 10:30 on the main stage across from Hutson’s Furniture Store, followed by local heroes Papa Aborigine at midnight; bands are also playing at the Southeast Missouri State University River Campus, the Yacht Club, Broussard’s, Rude Dog, Ragsdale’s Upstairs, Detours, Ragsdale’s Downstairs, Mollies, Kelsen Gallery, the Wine Cellar, Touch of Grace and at the outdoor Swing Stage at Main and Themis streets; the festival will continue all day tomorrow, culminating with the St. Louis jazz band El Buho.

The Alzheimer’s Association of St. Louis has opened an office in Cape Girardeau to serve families touched but Alzheimer’s disease in Cape Girardeau, Scott, Stoddard and Butler counties; the office is housed with the Southeast Area Agency on Aging, 1219 N. Kingshighway.

1974

​A request Monday by the Cape Girardeau Council of the University of Missouri Extension Division for additional funds to meet office rent prompted a County Court inquiry about the possibility of a reduction in the division’s office staff at Jackson; Associate Judge J. Ronald Fischer raised the question after two members of the council — Charles Schabbing and Theodore Seabaugh — requested that the court appropriate an additional $211 for each of the last three months of this year to meet the rent the division pays for the basement of the Jackson Post Office; the court agreed to pick up the cost of the rent for the remainder of the year.

The Shawnee Education Association and Board of Education Unit School District in Illinois have reached a tentative agreement that has reopened schools for at least two more weeks; meanwhile, work has resumed on the new Student Union at Southeast Missouri State University, as striking sheet metal workers have removed their picket lines.

1949

​Al Sander, speaking on behalf of the Coffee Drinkers Friendship Club, says the “coon on the log” contest will be held at the Capaha Park lagoon tomorrow as scheduled, despite protests from the Humane Society of Missouri; Sander says he sees nothing inhumane about the contest, and that some of the raccoons to be in the competition here have been in several contests in adjoining states; this will be the first such contest in Missouri; money raised from the event will benefit the polio emergency fund drive.

Cumulative losses to the Southeast Missouri cotton crop through this week’s heavy rains are expected to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, although growers say it is still too early to tell definitely how severe the grade loss on their crops might be; soybeans aren’t expected to be affected so much.

1924

​Cape Girardeau County authorities are investigating the discovery of a file, carefully wrapped in paper and concealed in a section of the Frisco passenger car on which Sheriff William Browning took four prisoners to the state penitentiary at Jefferson City on Wednesday; it is believed the new file was hidden on the train when it stopped here for the prisoners to use to saw through their handcuffs.

Approximately 75 bales of hay, valued at $1,500, were lost in a fire, originating from spontaneous combustion, which destroyed a barn on a farm owned by First National Bank of Cape Girardeau, one-half mile east of McClure, Illinois, yesterday; “Jumbo”, the biggest machine of the Cape Girardeau Fire Department, made a run to the fire in 30 minutes, but the blaze had gained such headway, that the barn was destroyed; the fire apparatus crossed the Mississippi River on the ferry here and negotiated the Illinois country roads with ease.

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.