__100 years ago__
Sept. 14, 1923
• The first of Butler County’s cotton crop is harvested and sold for 10 cents per pound at the Cotton Belt Lumber Company in Poplar Bluff.
• A commuter narrowly escapes death after his car stalls on the train tracks. Charles Ivester of Arcadia tried to drive over a railroad crossing on his way to work in the early morning hours when the engine died. He tried cranking the engine of his Ford back to life from the front, oblivious to the northbound engine speeding toward him until it was almost on top of him. Ivester jumped to safety at the last minute. The car was destroyed.
• W. A. Foster expands the search for his missing granddaughter Lula DeWier, 34, to other Southeast Missouri communities. Lula DeWier has not been heard from since July, and Foster feared she was abducted or killed by her ex-husband. Foster arrived yesterday from St. Louis looking for her.
__75 years ago__
Sept. 14, 1948
• The end of call restrictions has the owners of communal telephones worried they’ll be left hanging by phony callers.
Multiple business owners have no-pay phones at their businesses for customer use. Previously these phones could only make local calls, but those restrictions have been lifted. The Southeast Missouri Telephone Company announced the area’s new dial system doesn’t allow operators to know what phone — and therefore what account — a long-distance call is placed from, so they must take the caller’s word on their identity. The account holder won’t know anything’s amiss until the bill comes in.
“Many phones already are hidden under counters. A few business places already have been stuck with long distance tolls they knew nothing about,” the Daily American Republic reports.
The article predicts “the friendly telephone” will soon have disappeared from Poplar Bluff. There are currently no public pay phones in the city.
__50 years ago__
Sept. 14, 1973
• Cape County Coroner George Rouse rules an infant found dead in a university trash chute died of a fractured skull.
The 1- to 2-day-old girl was discovered by a custodian in the trash chute of a Southeast Missouri State University dormitory. Rouse speculated the baby may have been born elsewhere and dumped. No arrests have been made.
• The Poplar Bluff Veterans Administration Hospital announces its General Purpose Intensive Care Unit will open Sept. 28. Director Wooten D. Simpson said the 225-bed hospital serves almost 50,000 veterans in 27 counties in Missouri and Arkansas.
• St. Louis Shriners will bring an hourlong parade to Poplar Bluff on Saturday.
• A Malden woman reports losing $10,000 to con artists she met at Valley Plaza Shopping Center in Poplar Bluff, who claimed they were in Poplar Bluff to collect insurance money and needed help finding an address. Police said “details were sketchy from that point on,” but they believe the woman was intimidated into cashing a personal check for $10,000 at a local bank as well as handing over her jewelry.
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.