25 years ago: March 3, 1986

The Pilot House at Perryville and Oriole roads, has been purchased by Jim and Jean Byrd from Bill Parker, who operated the establishment three years.

It was announced yesterday that the Southeast Missouri State University Indians will host this weekend's NCAA Division II South Central men's basketball tournament at Houck Field House; meanwhile, Southeast's women basketball players will have to pack warm clothes, as the Otahkians play in the postseason tournament at the University of Alaska at Anchorage.

Renovations to several buildings on Good Hope Street were underway in March 1961. Here workers remodeled the Cape Cut Rate Drug Store at Good Hope and Sprigg streets, giving it "a more modern look." (Missourian photograph by G.D. "Frony" Fronabarger)

50 years ago: March 3, 1961

Wetterau Grocery Co. of Desloge, Mo., the wholesaling unit of the IGA store group, announces plans to move its entire operations to a new warehouse to be built on a 20-acre tract in the vicinity of Cape Girardeau.

Over the past several months, a renovation program in the Good Hope business area has been taking place; most of the buildings there that haven't already been redone are undergoing remodeling in some form or fashion.

75 years ago: March 3, 1936

Three Cape Girardeau ministers, acting as a delegation from the Ministerial Alliance, discussed the relief situation with members of the County Court at Jackson yesterday; Dr. H.H. McGinty, the Rev. A.H. Beardsley and Adj. Malcolm C. Keene offered the help of the ministers in solving the relief problem.

Sign boards, if attractive and properly erected, will be allowed in Cape Girardeau; the city council has given Operle Poster Advertising Co. of Ste. Genevieve, Mo., permission to erect sign boards along the north side of North Street on city property; the boards will be a standard size, 11 feet high and 25 feet wide.

100 years ago: March 3, 1911

To encourage pupils of the Cape Girardeau schools to study the early history of their hometown, Mrs. Louis Houck is offering to give two prizes to the pupils who write the best stories of Don Louis Lorimier, Spanish commandant and founder of Cape Girardeau.

The park committee of the Commercial Club is hoping to transform the site of the Civil War fort overlooking Main Street north of Broadway into a public park; the property is so broken, it isn't suited to improvements other than for park purposes.

-- Sharon K. Sanders