1990

The former Cape Girardeau WISER building, 1111 Linden Ave., will be auctioned off next month, but an agency board member said the sale won't bring enough money to pay final salaries to the defunct agency's former workers.

Original artwork by Jake Wells, Al Agnew and John Boos will be sold at a benefit auction for the SEMO Council on the Arts. The silent auction will be held Dec. 9. The artwork, dating from 1974 to 1981, was donated from the collection of Boatmen's Bank.

1965

Cape Girardeau receives official notice it has been selected as one of the stopping points for the 20th annual Powder Puff Derby for women pilots. The race will start July 2, 1966, from Boeing Field at Seattle, Washington, and will end at Clearwater Beach, Florida.

Hail, wind, rain and a small tornado battered Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois last night, but the immediate Cape Girardeau area reported only minor wind damage. The tornado was reported in Nashville, Illinois.

1940

Ninety years ago today, at 3 p.m., a tornado reached out of the dark sky and wreaked havoc on the village of Cape Girardeau. St. Vincent's College was damaged by the twister, and St. Vincent's Catholic Church was destroyed, as was the Methodist meeting house. Only one person was killed in the storm.

Bill Kies, senior end on the Teachers College football team, who completed his four years of eligibility this season, expects to leave tomorrow for Kansas City, where he has been invited to play in the all-star football game there Sunday between teams representing colleges and universities of Missouri and Kansas.

1915

Nellie Holcomb, 19, teacher at the Juden School, three miles north of Cape Girardeau, sprang into the creek near the school Wednesday morning and pulled out a drowning boy, 7-year-old Eugene Jones, one of her pupils. Soaked to the skin, Holcomb and the older boys succeeded in resuscitating Jones. After a quick change of clothes, Holcomb returned to school and took up classes, only slightly late from the morning's heroics.

J.M. Allen, who about two months ago was assigned to a position as manager of the Floesch Construction Company and was in charge of the construction of the diversion channel of the Little River Drainage District, already has quit his position and is preparing to leave with his wife. He will return to his consulting engineering practice in Chicago.

-- Sharon K. Sanders