Out of the past 12/20/05

25 years ago: Dec. 20, 1980

McCLURE, Ill. -- George B. Bader Jr., of McClure, a former Cape Girardeau, stock broker and Alexander County commissioner, died yesterday following a long illness; he was 69 years old; Bader formerly managed the Kohlmeyer Stock and Commodity Co. in Cape Girardeau and was active in Democratic politics in both Illinois and Missouri.

There is music in the air in Cape Girardeau -- all of it coming from tubas; tuba players from Southeast Missouri State University and from other area schools play Christmas music as a special treat for downtown shoppers.

50 years ago: Dec. 20, 1955

With the two-cent-per-package cigarette tax ruled legal yesterday by a circuit court, local tobacco jobbers are preparing to start collection of the tax the beginning of next year; the price of cigarettes to retailers is expected to increase a penny to two pennies more per package above the two cents of the tax, in order to pay for the extra book work and labor involved in collecting the tax.

Residents of the Cape Girardeau County Farm are being transferred to nursing homes and other places as rapidly as accommodations can be found for them.

75 years ago: Dec. 20, 1930

A jury in Cape Girardeau Common Pleas Court yesterday awarded Corrine Dailey of Jackson $1,800 in her suit against the highway department for seven acres of land near Jackson taken in the construction of Highway 61 this year; the award was also for damages to the remainder of a tract divided by the highway.

Roy Smith of Cape Girardeau has been appointed by the city council as a full-time member of the Cape Girardeau Fire Department; another firemen will be hired Jan. 1, in an effort to bring the force up to the standard recommended by the Missouri Inspection Bureau.

100 years ago: Dec. 20, 1905

The special meeting of the Commercial Club last night was a credit to the city, and unless something unexpected happens, Cape Girardeau is destined to have a shoe factory within a very short time; owners of two small factories in St. Louis hope to consolidate the plants into one facility here.

Two freight trains -- one a Frisco train and the other a Cotton Belt -- collide head on a few hundred feet below the stone quarry south of the Frisco yards; the engines are badly battered, and two or three cars of lumber are smashed; no one is injured in the accident.

-- Sharon K. Sanders