Other days
100 YEARS AGO March 12, 1917 A written confession telling of the brutal murder of Mrs. Ben Diles, wife of a section foreman at Ashdown, Little River county, and her 15 months’ old daughter, was made to John T. Burkett, penitentiary commissioner, yesterday by John Hawkins, negro, 24 years old, who is sentenced to die in the electric chair tomorrow morning, Mr. Burkett said last night. Mrs. Diles and her baby were murdered early last fall. A searching party was organized and found the body the morning after the murder, about a mile from the home.
50 YEARS AGO March 12, 1967 A second attempt to get the North Little Rock City Council’s approval of an 18-page ordinance regulating the city’s sewer system may be made when the Council meets at 7 p.m. Monday at City Hall. The ordinance — which contains some innovations and combines most of the existing sewer ordinances under one title — was read one time two weeks ago and put on the calendar after several aldermen asked for time to study it.
25 YEARS AGO March 12, 1992 At Little Rock School Superintendent Ruth Steele’s request, the city Board of Directors put off a decision Wednesday on selling the district land at Ninth and Pulaski streets for a school. The board also decided to reconsider sign ordinance amendments, passed last month, that have angered billboard companies. The school district wants to buy a 3.55-acre park to build the Martin Luther King Elementary School. The property has been appraised at $77,000 — a price the district has apparently agreed to pay.
10 YEARS AGO March 12, 2007 In the six months since Pulaski County residents defeated a sales tax proposal to expand jail operations, county officials have lobbied the governor and state officials for financial aid and they’ve focused on preventing future financial problems like those that forced them into closing jail beds last year. A jail study that the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce promised after the tax failed also is under way. The report, expected to contain observations and possible solutions for the jail and county, could be ready as early as May. Jail policies have shifted and Quorum Court members are asking more budgetary questions than before. But at the same time, many things remain the same as before the Sept. 12 sales tax election.