This week in history
20 YEARS 1993
• Farmington athlete of the season in track is Shannon O’Dell, MAAA conference sports. Shannon is Farmington’s senior sprinter; has earned four gold medals at the conference meet last season (100 hurdles, 100 dash, 200 dash and 400 dash) while leading the Knightettes to their fourth straight MAAA championship. O’Dell earned a sixth place finish in the Class 4A state championship 300 hurdles and finished eighth in the 100 hurdles.
• The Farmington Knights baseball team has a new coach this season, Stan Walden. Walden has spent the last 14 years as coach in Caruthersville, compiling an amazing 172-80 record. Besides being baseball coach, Mr. Walden has worked as the football and basketball coach. The do everything man has also had to cut, rake and take care of the field. In his off season he is a scout for the Kansas City Royals.
• A four screen cinema complex will open this summer at Maple Valley Center. Construction of the complex will begin “as soon as possible,” said Chip Peterson of the Farmington Development Corporation. The corporation had reached an agreement with Kerasotes Theatres of Springfield, Illinois to build the complex on the west side of Market Street. The cinema will be called Maple Valley Four Cinema and will have seating for 576. The complex will be up to date in design with excellent projectors and sound system.
30 YEARS 1983
• The state hospital has been slated for some 43 cutbacks in staff. The cuts will be in the food service area and laundry area. There is some clerical staff to be cut along with a few other staff members to be cut. The Hospital hopes that these cuts can be made through attrition. However the food service cuts will force changes in the hospital operation. They will close two dining rooms and open one large dining room. Some patients will have to be taken from one building to another to be fed. The laundry services will be done by a company out of St. Louis. From a staff of 18 in the laundry it will be cut by 12. The remaining six will handle the collection and distribution of laundry.
• Four men were held in the county jail in lieu of $25,000 bond each pending action taken by the Prosecuting Attorney’s office. The suspects were arrested by Farmington police and sheriff’s deputies a short time after the local department received a report of a burglary in progress at a Farmington home. Police reported that one of the suspects was arrested minutes after the department received a report of a burglary in progress at a home in the 800 block of South A Street. A 19 year old was taken into custody today when he was found in a yard adjacent to the home where the burglary was said to be taking place.
40 YEARS 1973
• In a special board meeting conducted by the Board of Alderman it was decided to adopt the program for two scheduled meetings per month, the second and fourth Monday of each month. The fourth Monday would consist of business carried over from the Second Monday meeting. Also, that the newly formed committees would bring their findings to the council and it would be giving them two weeks to think about their decision.
• The board also discussed the operating procedure of the planning commission and its function, and the council’s connection with the board of adjustment. In the past there had been some confusion, when the council thought the board of adjustments had assumed more authority than the board.
• The council went one step further in a decision made by the past council concerning a water agreement made between the city and Mr. and Mrs. Arlie McClard and Mr. and Mrs. Bob Camp. The agreement made by the past council provided water for the west area of U.S. Highway 67 without the “no contest” agreement that in the event the city wanted to annex the area in the future, the water mains would automatically become the property of the city and the resident would not contest the annexation.
50 YEARS 1963
• Trimfoot Company of Farmington, manufacturer of children’s and infant’s shoes, now in its 50th year, announced late spring and summer ad plans featuring their “Free and Easy” barefoot shoe. According toTrimfoot President, John B. Reinhart, “The Patented “Free and Easy” barefoot shoe is acclaimed by Pediatricians because it slides on without flexing the infant’s foot.
• The water in the lower reservoir lake of Union Electric Taum Sauk project in the foot hills of the Missouri’s Ozarks is a good sign in telling how close the tremendous power project is to completion. Begun more than two years ago the Taum Sauk Plant is a project in the continued search for new ways to store electricity or the power that creates it. Sources indicate that the gigantic power plant structure will be thrown into operation sometime during the early summer of 1963.
• Blaine Hill of Potosi, who had formerly operated a Standard Oil Company, Service Station at the Washington County seat, is now operating the Standard station at Ozark Village at the intersection of US 67 and Highway 32.
60 YEARS 1953
• A. J. Vessel of Desloge and John Schafer of Farmington have recently purchased the Whistle-Vess Bottling Company of Farmington from the Merchant’s Dairy of Desloge Mr. Vessel, who was formerly of the Merchant’s Dairy will manage the plant which they took over on May 11.
• Miss Jo Ann Shelton and Mr. Dale Guy Stocker have achieved the remarkable record of nine years of attendance of grade and high school in the Farmington public schools without a single day of being absent or tardy. Miss Shelton is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Shelton of Farmington and Mr. Stocker is the son of Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Stocker of Farmington.
• One of the most publicized cases pending in the Circuit Court of St. Francois County came to a surprise ending Friday when Henry Rex Thompson appeared with one of his court appointed attorneys and entered please of guilty to charges of armed robbery in 1948, jail break in 1948, jail break in 1952. Judge Randolph Weber of Poplar Bluff who was called into hear the case when Judge B. C. Thomlinson disqualified himself, took Thompson’s guilty plea and sentenced him to five years for armed robbery and to two years on each charge of breaking jail. Thompson held up Arthur Leach who had picked him up hitch hiking and took about $35. He forced Leach to drive him around for about two hours until Leach saw his chance and jumped from the truck at an intersection. After an extensive two day manhunt Thompson was found hiding in a field south of Farmington and held in the St. Francois County Jail for trial. However, on October 19, 1948, Thompson in company with five other prisoners broke jail, and left the state. In 1952 he was found and turned over to the Sheriff’s Department.
70 YEARS 1943
• Of several dogs in the Army air corps to be awarded silver wings for making five jumps from a plane the best known is “Max”, a boxer owned by the 505th parachute battalion at Fort Benning, Ga. So far, Max has jumped eight times, wearing a special harness with a large chute that opens by a static line attached to the rip cord.
80 YEARS 1933
• Lake of the Woods Country Club. Inc., in St. Louis, which sold leases for cabin sites in Jefferson and St. Francois counties, has filed a voluntary bankruptcy petition in Federal Court. The petition listed liabilities aggregating $18,644 and assets said to have a value of $110.222. Of the liabilities $13,968 are listed as unsecured. Among debts are taxes, fees due to a receiver appointed at Farmington, Missouri, for the company, material bills and fees of an attorney and architect. The petition stated that the company had equities totaling $107,000 in farms and land holdings near the Big River.
• Lafayette Robinson, formerly of Flat River, was picked up by St. Louis Police on the fifteenth of this month and turned over to the St. Francois County officers at their request. Robinson was wanted here on a charge for stealing automobile tires during the year of 1926. As most of the witnesses have since died or moved away he will not be tried here. However, it was learned that he had escaped from a reformatory in Pendleton, Ind. and from the jail at Belleville, Illinois. Belleville authorities are now securing extradition papers for his return to that city.
