100 years ago
Nov. 29, 1923
• Thanksgiving Day is today and it marks the 11th anniversary of the opening of the Elks Club in Poplar Bluff. The day will be celebrated with a Thanksgiving Ball. However, the ball will be on Friday night (Nov. 30) because of the inability to secure the Egyptian Serenaders orchestra from Cairo, Illinois, on Thanksgiving night. The winter and spring social season is expected to be a banner year for the Elks Club in the way of social functions.
• Playing on Thanksgiving Eve (Nov. 28), an injury-hobbled Poplar Bluff Mules football team lost 19-7 to Malden. Malden’s Mills, described as the “fastest man in Southeast Missouri in high school” by the Weekly Citizen Democrat, scored three touchdowns for Malden. Leach scored the Mules’ lone touchdown.
75 years ago
Nov. 29, 1948
• With Thanksgiving past and only 22 shopping days left before Christmas, Poplar Bluff merchants are beaming their efforts toward the Yuletide buyer. Today almost every store in the downtown district already has put Christmas displays in its windows or is doing so now. By tomorrow night the city will be all aglow with Christmas lights and decorations and a large crowd is expected on the streets for the annual Jaycees window judging.
• Poplar Bluff postmaster Z. Lee Stokely today appealed to local residents to plan to mail all Christmas greeting cards and gift packages “just as early in December as possible.” An even heavier flood of Yuletide mail is expected this Christmas than during the record-breaking 1947 holiday season.
“If you postpone mailing to the last minute this year,” the postmaster warned, “you risk disappointing your friends. Your holiday messages and gifts may be caught in the rush and perhaps not delivered until after Christmas.”
50 years ago
Nov. 29, 1973
• The Poplar Bluff Housing Authority received formal authorization Wednesday, Nov. 28, to accept the proposal of the B.B. Andersen Development Company, Inc. to build 74 low-income housing units for the elderly in Poplar Bluff. The Andersen firm submitted a ceiling proposal of $1.596 million for the buildings and improvements, according to Howard Wilson, executive director of the Poplar Bluff Housing Authority. The housing units will be at the intersections of Main and Relief streets and Second and Davidson streets.
• Dr. A.D. Brookreson, an alumnus of Poplar Bluff High School, was selected last night (Nov. 28) in a special session by the Poplar Bluff R-I Board of Education to fill the unexpired term of the late Dr. B.M. McLain. The board also considered Mack Whiteley, who is a manager of the Auto Parts & Wrecking Company.
McLain, a longtime member of the school board, died Nov. 20, of injuries suffered in a car crash on Highway 67 South.
Editor’s note: 1) Thanksgiving was celebrated on the last Thursday in November in 1923. 2) Whiteley would later be elected to the school board, as would his son, Danny, who later served 22 years as Poplar Bluff’s Chief of Police.