Out of the past: Dec. 2

1992

Six months after the old bridge was closed, officials say only bad weather can delay the opening of a new Bloomfield Road bridge over Cape LaCroix Creek; the bridge was shut down June 2 for construction of the new, 36-foot-wide span that will include a 5-foot-wide pedestrian crossing on the north side.

Zebra mussels have finally made it to Cape Girardeau, say Missouri Department of Conservation officials; the Cape Girardeau finding of the bio-fouling organism, a native of Europe, is the first in the Mississippi north of its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois.

1967

A summer-like thunderstorm passes over Cape Girardeau early in the morning, leaving storm sewers and creeks full with accumulated rain which is measured at 1.74 inches at the municipal airport up to 9:30 a.m.; the rain is accompanied by warm temperatures, lightning and thunder; total rainfall for the last three days is almost 3 inches.

Garland D. Fronabarger, a commercial photographer who does extensive work for The Southeast Missourian newspaper, suffered a heart attack last night and is in serious condition at a local hospital; Fronabarger was stricken while processing photographs at The Missourian building.

1942

The board of directors of the Consolidated School of Aviation, Inc., met yesterday afternoon and made plans for the immediate rebuilding of the school's airfield on Highway 74, which was destroyed by fire that morning; W.J. Kies, president of the firm, says that preliminary plans are for a greatly expanded school which likely will be housed in a group of four buildings, instead of a single structure.

Although not inspired directly by gasoline rationing which began this week, John Riehn, a farmer living at Hilderbrand in the extreme northwest corner of the county, hitches up a trusty mule to his automobile this morning and uses the long-eared specimen as motive power for the first five miles of the trip to Cape Girardeau; the trouble, for both Riehn and the mule, was that the farmer couldn't get the motor of his automobile to budge in the wintry air.

1917

Mrs. George E. Alt arrived in Cape Girardeau yesterday to spend two weeks visiting Mrs. George Bell and other friends; the Alt family lived here until five years ago, when it moved to Virginia to take charge of a large plantation; Alt lives at Charlottesville, Virginia, while her son, Terry, is attending the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington.

There was a hog sale at Illmo Saturday organized by Joseph J. Seyer; he had Col. A.A. Ebert, well known in the livestock business, doing the selling; there was a big crowd of interested farmers at the sale, all of them looking for something good to add to their herds.

-- Sharon K. Sanders