Out of the past 6/6/06

25 years ago: June 6, 1981

Numerous law enforcement officers, acting on tips provided by alert citizens, make pre-dawn captures of the three men who had escaped Thursday night from the Cape Girardeau County jail in Jackson; one of the men is captured in Jackson and the other two in Gordonville.

The recently funded Family Learning Center is now in full operation, according to director Susan M. Ritter, providing services for about 40 clients in its first six weeks of operation.

50 years ago: June 6, 1956

Workers encountering difficulty with dirt slides and with such things as railroad steel and ties, washtubs, brickbats, beer bottles and tin cans, as they try to lay a deep sewer along South Main may be interested in knowing they are digging into a section of town that less than 50 years ago was only a slough of the Mississippi River; back then, Main Street proper stopped at Independence, and the meandering Mississippi, starting at Independence, had cut a half-moon cove in the bank which in high water was almost deep enough to float a steamboat.

The Jackson City Council has voted to buy a lot on North Missouri Street and adjacent to the present office of the water and light department building for future expansion.

75 years ago: June 6, 1931

The Cape Girardeau City Council in special session yesterday passed an ordinance fixing the annual city tax rate for the year; the rate of 74 cents of the $100 assessed valuation, which existed during the past year, was again adopted.

Workers for the Cape Special Road District are pouring concrete on a bridge near Hanover Lutheran Church on Perryville Road; the span is being widened, automobile traffic making it necessary to replace this bridge and two others on the same road with ones that will accommodate two-way traffic instead of one-way travel.

100 years ago: June 6, 1906

The McElroy-Stratman Electric Co. is moving into its new building on Themis Street, a few doors west of the Sturdivant Bank; it should be in operation in a few days with a big line of supplies on display.

The morning train from Cape Girardeau meets with an accident three miles north of the city; the train, traveling at a considerable rate, was passing over the iron culvert at Juden Creek when the tender jumped the track and stopped the train immediately; had the train run on a little further, the passenger coaches might have been thrown into the creek a considerable distance below.

-- Sharon K. Sanders