Out of the past 4/20/14

1989

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Moving Wall opens informally in the morning in the grassy area between the West Park Mall parking lot and Route K, attracting hundreds of visitors; opening ceremonies will be held this evening.

The Cape Girardeau Regional Commerce and Growth Association is considering a request for incorporation of the Cape Centre Chamber of Commerce into the RCGA; a Centre Chamber official requested the incorporation, which would effectively dissolve the chamber.

1964

Over the weekend, members of two State College fraternities, Sigma Tau Epsilon and Sigma Tau Gamma, scrubbed clean the Statue of Liberty at Freedom Corner in Capaha Park; vandals recently poured red paint over Lady Liberty.

Major work is expected to resume tomorrow on Kingshighway, U.S. 61 through Cape Girardeau, which is undergoing widening, surfacing and general construction of the main intersections; the project -- from city limits to city limits -- was begun last spring and may be completed by early summer.

1939

After an illness of four months, William Hirsch, pioneer merchant, banker and civic worker and one-time mayor and former county judge of Cape Girardeau, dies at his home here; Hirsch was born in 1866 in Madison, Ind., but his parents brought him to Cape Girardeau when he was 2.

Southeast Missouri's annual high school meet opens in Cape Girardeau with Class CC schools, those with from 100 to 250 pupils, competing; tomorrow will bring the big throng of pupils in Class B and C schools, the largest and smallest schools in the district, for competition in music and vocational agriculture contests.

1914

It is said that a petition for the opening of the old Commercial Bar on Main Street near Broadway is being circulated; some of the property owners in the area have signed it, but quite a few have refused; the Citizens' Committee is already at work to keep the saloon from reopening.

The New Broadway Theater opens in the afternoon to a large crowd; the building on the corner of Broadway and Frederick Street has been transformed by proprietors Mike and John Doyle into the nicest picture show house in the city.

__-- Sharon K. Sanders__