Out of the past: Jan. 21

1998

The City of Cape Girardeau has signed on with the Operation Weed and Seed anti-crime initiative; the City Council last night approved a contract for services with Southeast Missouri Weed and Seed, Inc., and will seek funding to strengthen law enforcement programs against drugs and gang activities.

Jackson will lose the only full-time fire chief the city has ever had when Chief Gary Niswonger, 62, retires April 1; Niswonger went to work for the Jackson Fire Department in 1977.

1973

A gospel singing sponsored by the Soul Crusaders is held at the Arena Building in the afternoon; the group is made up of people from Cape Girardeau, Scott City and Sikeston, Missouri; the Rev. Alvin Kuntze is speaker at the event.

The Seminary Singers of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University at Dallas, Texas, performs in the evening at New McKendree United Methodist Church at Jackson; the group, all graduate students in the master of theology or master of sacred music programs at the university, is directed by Dr. Carlton R. Young.

1948

Two Cape Girardeau police officers -- Benson Hendrickson and Herbert Frentzel -- have been promoted; both have been acting patrol car sergeants, and their duties won't change; Frentzel has been with the city force more than three years, while Hendrickson has been a member for more than 18 months.

Since there are five Sunday in the month of February only three or four times in 100 years, and since February 1948 will have five Sundays, next month has been designated "Citywide Religious Emphasis Month" by the Cape Girardeau Ministerial Alliance; the alliance will promote a five-Sunday attendance campaign in churches, launched by a rally day Feb. 1 in Sunday schools and in some churches during the morning worship service.

1923

A lot, adjoining the church property on the south, has been purchased by the congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church and will be used for recreation purposes at present; the purchase was made from William Sperling, the church giving $2,000 for the 70-by-180-foot lot on South Sprigg Street; it will be made into a modern playground, with indications that a gymnasium will be built on it later.

Thirty seconds after the southbound Frisco train, with scores of passengers aboard, passes over the 80-foot-long trestle across Cape La Croix Creek in Smelterville, the north end of the bridge drops into the stream; within an hour the whole structure is in the creek, the concrete supports washed away; the creek, swollen by a terrific rain storm late Saturday, continued its turbulent drive against the supports and washing away 20 more feet of the south side of the bank.

-- Sharon K. Sanders