25 years ago: Jan. 7, 1984

Twelve Cape Girardeau families have been awarded a total of $46,570 in damages by Cape Girardeau County Circuit Court Stanley A. Grimm in their lawsuit against the city for water damage resulting from flooding of their homes from March 1977 through March 1982; the families live on Sherwood and Briarwood drives, along Walker Creek.

Fruin-Colnon, a St. Louis construction company, has signed a contract with a new union — Craftsman Independent Union Local No. 1 — to provide the labor on a project to upgrade and modernize the Procter & Gamble Paper Products Co. plant in Cape Girardeau County.

50 years ago: Jan. 7, 1959

Rising temperatures today threaten to put an end to two days of ice skating, the first during the winter, on the lagoon at Capaha Park.

Dr. D.F. Sadler, 86, a retired Cape Girardeau dentist, died last night; born in Oak Ridge in 1872, Sadler was educated at the State College and was a graduate of the Gem City Business College at Sedalia, Mo., and the St. Louis University Dental College; he practiced in Cape Girardeau from 1920 through 1953, when he retired.

75 years ago: Jan. 7, 1934

A complete audit of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Jackson shows all bills paid, all obligations met and a few hundred dollars in the treasury; the congregation is free of debt and owns a handsome church, a small schoolhouse and two dwellings on Second West Street.

The Rev. S.E. Braden, pastor of the Christian church at Paducah, Ky., preaches in the evening at the First Christian Church in Cape Girardeau.

100 years ago: Jan. 7, 1909

Cape Girardeau will have another modern store; not to be outdone by the Buckner-Ragsdale Store, which was remodeled after a fire, the proprietors of the Glenn Store are remodeling that establishment into a model of beauty and convenience; in addition, Caldwell Brothers of Caldwell Trading Co., announce they have taken a long-term lease on the Houck Building.

The Gulf train brings in an extra boxcar to accommodate the baggage of a theatrical troupe, which has a dozen beautiful women with it; it is so cold, however, that the town's "stage door Johnnies" aren't at the depot to see them alight.

— Sharon K. Sanders