Out of the past 2/20/05

25 years ago: Feb. 20, 1980

Jack C. Tallman of Cairo, Ill., suffered cuts and an injured left hand when he crashed his light airplane last night three miles west of the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport; Tallman, who was alone in the plane, walked a mile from the crash to Highway 25 near Dutchtown, where Ronnie Eifert of Chaffee, Mo., picked him up and drove him to a hospital for treatment.

A petition drive seeking the placement of a 10-cent tax levy to support mental health care in Cape Girardeau County on the Aug. 5 ballot has begun.

50 years ago: Feb. 20, 1955

The Rev. J.E. Williams of Pasadena, Calif., speaks at both services at Church of the Nazarene; he has served as pastor of some of the largest churches in the denomination and now gives his full time to the field of evangelism.

An Air Force jet fighter-interceptor, its fuel exhausted, plows a 400-yard path through a woods three miles north of Patton Junction, Mo., in the afternoon, a few minutes after its pilot and radar observer parachute to safety 22 miles away, near Lutesville, Mo.

75 years ago: Feb. 20, 1930

Two federal Prohibition agents tumbled wearily into bed at a Cape Girardeau hotel last night after completing a tramp through swamp and lowlands of Mississippi County which ended in the arrest of five men, all of Cairo, Ill., on charges of manufacture of intoxicating liquor and possession of whisky and stills.

General agent J.T. Hulehan announces that installation of an electric block signal system on the line of the Frisco Railroad between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis, projected to cost between $375,000 and $400,000, will start immediately.

100 years ago: Feb. 20, 1905

Judge R.G. Ranney and Charles B. Armgardt begin circulating a petition endorsing what is called the "Progressive Ticket" for city office.

Two changes in business are announced in morning; H.P. Peironnet has incorporated his big concern, and in the future it will be known as Peironnet-Wilson Mercantile Co.; the other change is in the E.S. Lilly hardware store; Lilly has also incorporated, and now the name of the firm is Juden-Lilly Mercantile Co.

- Sharon K. Sanders