1988

The new Trail of Tears State Park Visitor and Interpretive Center is set to open next week; opening of the $501,000 center had been delayed, while the cultural and natural history displays were being manufactured.

The city of Cape Girardeau and its chamber of commerce are awarded the Missouri Beautification Association's first Clean Sweep City award, recognizing the Help Cape Shine program.

1963

A curator to oversee Old McKendree Methodist Chapel has been named and a parsonage built to house him by the Old McKendree Association; the Rev. H.R. Tate, retired Methodist minister, has accepted the newly created position.

The Common Pleas Courthouse Park, the headquarters of the Union Army during the Civil War, is the scene of a ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Cape Girardeau; principal speaker is Rush H. Limbaugh, who discusses those who fought in the battle on April 26, 1863.

1938

SIKESTON, Mo. -- A southbound St. Louis-to-Memphis Frisco passenger train crashes into the rear of a Frisco freight train on the main line track three blocks north of the Sikeston railroad passenger station at 3:48 a.m.; two trainmen are injured, one seriously; the passenger train locomotive is overturned, and the caboose and three empty freight cars of the freight train are nearly demolished.

Fire of undetermined origin destroyed a sales barn on Highway 61, a half-mile north of Highway 74, shortly after midnight; the frame building, built two years ago, was owned by Charles Watkins of Oran, Mo., and A.E. Miles was operating the Miles Mule Co. from the barn.

1913

L.R. Spikings, president of the Chicago Artificial Flower Co., has written the special flower parade committee that he will be in Cape Girardeau the latter part of the week to confer with the Elks and all those who expect to enter their automobiles in the flower parade.

The surplus rock and earth being excavated during the Sprigg Street paving work is being used to good advantage on Frederick Street, near the Roth Tobacco factory; it won't be long before that block can be paved.

-- Sharon K. Sanders