Out of the past: May 24

1993

The decision a year ago by the U.S. Supreme Court to ban prayer at school graduation ceremonies seemed to have little effect on the Cape Girardeau High School baccalaureate service last night; the service was sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Ministerial Alliance in lieu of the school and was held at the Holiday Inn Convention Center instead of the school gymnasium; attendance was optional, as it always has been.

The Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau is expected to drop below the 32-foot flood stage this week; it has crested above flood stage here five times in the last month and a half.

1968

MOREHOUSE, Mo. -- Some 37,000 gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel at Morehouse Oil Co. exploded into flames and burned out of control for nearly three hours here yesterday afternoon, destroying almost half a city block and injuring about 30 spectators and firefighters.

Authority has given the State College administration to investigate the means of permanent investment of the $240,000 bequest given the college by the late Earl G. Gramling of Cape Girardeau; the money is intended for scholarships for students interested in the fields of government and history.

1943

The mighty Mississippi River, roaring to a new modern record of 40.5 feet at Cape Girardeau over the weekend, smashed upstream levees in Missouri and Illinois, flooded nearly 100,000 acres of fertile farm land and drove additional thousands of persons from their homes; a valiant fight to hold the Illinois levees protecting the 88-square-mile Union-Alexander basin in Illinois east of Cape Girardeau ended at 11:15 last night, when the levee crevassed two miles northwest of Wolf Lake, Illinois.

With water pouring over a large territory in Illinois after the dike break, hundreds of families had to leave their homes in the area; warned Sunday that they should evacuate, many of the families packed up as best they could and moved before the break came.

1918

There is a crash of truck and beer bottles at the noon hour, when a five-ton truck of the Cape Girardeau depot of the Green Tree Brewery goes through a trestle spanning a big ditch near Hazel Spur in East Illmo; the truck, heavily laden with bottle beer, turns turtle in the 12-foot ditch; the two men in the truck jump to safety.

The Rev. August Wilder, 59, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Cape Girardeau, dies at his home at the Lutheran parsonage in the morning following a long illness; every member of his family is present when the end comes, including a son, Hugo, who is stationed at Hampton Roads, Virginia, with the Navy.

-- Sharon K. Sanders