25 years ago: March 27, 1986

Cape Girardeau appears to be out of the running as a site for a new maximum-security prison because it is not an economically depressed area.

Cape Girardeau County Sheriff Dwight Thomas requests that the county commission retain 12 of his employees as noncommissioned deputies, ending more than two weeks of uncertainty regarding their status; included among the position changes are the department's two chief deputies, Capts. Terry Curtis and Leonard Hines.

50 years ago: March 27, 1961

A crew begins razing the white brick house on Broadway that has served as offices and studios for radio station KFVS to make way for a building to house broadcasting facilities and general offices; it will be in line with adjoining Marquette Hotel and First Federal Savings & Loan Association.

A small sewer district along Country Club Drive is the first to fall because of the failure of sewage disposal to pass at a February bond election; the city council passes an ordinance declaring the work necessary, but then shelves it to conform with an order from the Missouri Water Pollution Board, which refused to issue a permit for construction.

75 years ago: March 27, 1936

Reflecting the high stage of the Ohio River as its flooding waters move toward the confluence with the Mississippi River at Cairo, Ill., the stage of the latter stream is rising slightly on the Southeast Missouri front.

H.H. Haas Jr.'s plans to open a cafe in a renovated city street car in the 400 block of Broadway have run afoul of city and state inspectors, because the old trolley isn't fireproof.

100 years ago: March 27, 1911

The plan for an interstate highway reaching from St. Louis to Hot Springs, Ark., is gaining in popularity; Cape Girardeau would be the stopping place for the first night's automobile runs out of St. Louis.

F.W. Morrison, the ice man, is determined to use the purest water in the cold goods he sells; for several months his expert well digger, Al H. Wilson, has bored away at a point in front of the main door of the ice factory in the north end of the city; however, at 130 feet a boulder moved the drill sideways, ending efforts on that well; today, he begins a new hole about a hundred feet from the first.

-- Sharon K. Sanders