Out of the past: Aug. 12

1990

Good weather the past two months has enabled construction of the new Cape Girardeau fire station, near Mount Auburn and Bloomfield roads, to proceed at a rapid rate; except for the south wall, the masonry contractors nearly have finished the walls of the three-bay, 6,500-square-foot station; steel for the roof supports is on site.

Reconstruction of the fire-damaged Opera House building, which housed the Royal N'Orleans restaurant, is making good progress; workers are pouring footings and setting floor joists inside the shell.

1965

A three-quarter mile stretch of South West End Boulevard connecting with Highway 74 has opened to traffic in a cloud of dust, with graveling still unfinished.

Draft calls sent higher by the Vietnam War have forced the Cape Girardeau Draft Board to gradually lower the age of men called for military service; next month the board plans to draft several 20-year-olds; if draft calls in Washington continue at their present level, the board may begin drafting men 19 years old within a few months; the board continues to defer full-time college students.

1940

Robert E. Kaempfer, son of Mr. and Mrs. E.E. Kaempfer of Cape Girardeau, and Army Air Corps flying cadet, has been assigned to the primary training field at Ontario, California; Kaempfer will complete his training in nine months.

One of the finest commercial airports in this section of the country will serve the Cape Girardeau-Jackson area, if plans for the proposed field near Dutchtown are carried out; plans were filed Friday along with the application to the Works Progress Administration for funds, revealing a pretentious layout; it would be comparable in scale to Lambert Field in St. Louis.

1915

If the Missouri Supreme Court permits the state auditor and attorney general to carry out their plans to "rob" the public school fund of the state in order to have sufficient money to pay officeholders, Cape Girardeau's public schools will be deprived of $1,657.60; such a move would seriously handicap the town's schools.

Hamilton & Lamprich, the wagon makers on Upper Broadway, have completed a fine new sanitary delivery wagon for Bauer Brothers Bakery; the wagon is screened off in such a way that flies, dust and other filth cannot settle on the bread and pastries.

-- Sharon K. Sanders