Out of the past: Dec. 19

1992

After losing his re-election bid in the August Republican primary, Cape Girardeau County Associate Commissioner Leonard Sander is trying to tie up the loose ends of his eight terms on the commission; as commissioner from the 1st District, Sander was responsible for overseeing the county highway department and road and bridge program.

The Cape Girardeau City Council is being asked to give voters an opportunity to decide whether riverboat gambling should be allowed in the city; in a letter last week to city manager J. Ronald Fischer, the president of the Downtown Redevelopment Corp., Charles L. Hutson, noted he has received several inquiries about docking a boat on the Cape Girardeau riverfront and requested an election be called as soon as possible.

1967

City Sanitation Inc., the licensed firm for refuse disposal in Cape Girardeau, is asking the city council for a 50-cent monthly increase in pickup rates.

Cape Girardeau's bridge over the Mississippi River, maintained jointly by the Missouri and Illinois highway departments, last was inspected in October or November; in light of the Ohio bridge tragedy last week, three members of Congress have asked state inspection of privately- or municipally-owned bridges, and some are calling for federal standards for bridges.

1942

Mr. and Mrs. W.B. Hopper of Fornfelt received a telegram from the adjutant general in Washington, D.C., yesterday informing them their son, Pvt. Link P. Hopper, 22, was killed in action in the Southwest Pacific area about Dec. 2.

Lt. Robert A. Cox, who has been stationed at Janesville, Wisconsin, arrived in Cape Girardeau last night and today assumes his duties as public-relations officer at the Cape Institute of Aeronautics, the new Army airfield; he previously served with an Army Air Force glider training detachment and at the combat crew school at Hendrix Field, Sebring, Florida.

1917

Major J.F. Brooks, surveyor, engineer, landscape expert and man with many years' experience in work of such nature, has been appointed a member of the Cape Girardeau Park Commission; he will fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Mrs. Ralph H. Schultz, who has moved from the city.

Jacob Stehr, uncle of Harrig merchant C.W. Stehr and one of the oldest and best known residents in Cape Girardeau, is bedfast at his home on North Ellis Street suffering from a fractured hip, which he sustained Monday in a fall on the ice and snow; Stehr is nearly 80 years old.

-- Sharon K. Sanders