100 years ago Sept. 19, 1923
• Four people are injured in a car crash last night when their Ford automobile failed to navigate a curve, went into a ditch and overturned.
Miss Nettie Joseph suffered three broken ribs, while J.A. McKay injured his thumb. Both also suffered bruises, as did two other passengers in the vehicle, J.E. McKay and an unidentified woman.
• Local resident W.H. Kittredge is a passenger on a train that derails about 35 miles north of Chester, Illinois the night of Sept. 16, killing several of his livestock which were headed to the East St. Louis market. Kittredge continued his trip to St. Louis, returning home Sept. 17.
• A Springfield newspaper carries a picture of Rev. William Smelser of Poplar Bluff in its Monday edition. Smelser was in Springfield assisting his brother in a revival at the East Avenue Baptist Church.
Sept. 19, 1948 — No editions available.
50 years ago Sept. 19, 1973
• Wooten D. Simpson, director of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Poplar Bluff, invites the general public to attend the formal opening of the hospital’s new general purpose intensive care unit at 2 p.m. the next day Sept. 20.
The Poplar Bluff High School marching band is slated to perform at the event at 1:30 p.m. The main address is to be given by Dr. Thomas J. Fitzgerald, medical director of the Veterans Administration.
The six-bed unit cost $125,000 to build. Medical personnel for the ICU received training at the University of Iowa, University of Missouri, Southern Illinois University and at the Poplar Bluff VA hospital.
• Two men are killed in a car crash this morning on U.S. Highway 160. One was identified as Richard L. Webb, 19, of Flat River, while the other was a 23-year-old Poplar Bluff resident whose name is withheld pending notification of next of kin.
The station wagon, owned by Webb’s mother, was westbound when it ran off the road just east of the Cypress Creek bridge, struck the concrete bridge abutment and flew 81 feet through the air. Both victims were thrown from the vehicle into Cypress Creek.
Editor’s note: This is part of a new regular series looking at today in Poplar Bluff’s history through the pages of the Daily American Republic and its early predecessors.