Out of the past 1/24/11

25 years ago: Jan. 24, 1986

JEFFERSON CITY -- The Missouri Supreme Court yesterday heard lawyers argue the legal merits of an agreement between the city of Cape Girardeau and Southeast Missouri State University to build a multipurpose building on the Southeast campus; the seven-member high court heard oral arguments in the appeal of a circuit judge's ruling barring the city from financial participation with the university in the controversial project.

A longtime news and farm editor with the Southeast Missourian, A. Aven Kinder, died yesterday at a care center in Roseville, Minn.; Kinder, 84 years old, recently moved to Roseville; he was associated with the Missourian for 38 years, retiring in 1967.

50 years ago: Jan. 24, 1961

The retirement of Lyman A. Matthews as president of First National Bank and the appointment of Richard H. Swaim, executive vice president for the past 2 1/2 years, as his successor are announced by the board of directors.

Dozens of youngsters don coats and ice skates to take to the frozen Capaha Park lagoon despite the bitter cold.

75 years ago: Jan. 24, 1936

Winter keeps a firm grip on Cape Girardeau as the temperature sinks to a new low mark of 3 degrees below zero; scores of appeals from the needy pour into the city-county relief headquarters and the Salvation Army, most seeking fuel for heat.

Plans for the construction of a six-story, 40-room annex to the Hotel Marquette are announced by William Berberich of St. Louis, the owner; construction of the $70,000 annex should begin within another month.

100 years ago: Jan. 24, 1911

Judge C.B. Faris has declared the 25-cent per acre tax levied by the Little River Drainage District to be valid, and the statute under which it was levied to be constitutional; the decision was handed down yesterday at Jackson at a special term of the circuit court in the suit of Louis Houck, et al., against the Little River Drainage District and the collector of Cape Girardeau County.

The general offices of the Cape Bell Telephone Co. have been moved from the Sturdivant Bank building, Themis and Main streets, to its new building on Broadway; auditor Charles Boutin moved his belongings to the new quarters Saturday.

-- Sharon K. Sanders