Other days
100 YEARS AGO Jan. 17, 1918
SEARCY — The large warehouse owned by the Merchants’ Grocery Company was burned this morning at 5 o’clock. The fire was not discovered until the building, which is a block long, was doomed. Indications point very strongly to incendiarism. The loss of merchandise is estimated at $10,000 to $15,000 with no insurance.
50 YEARS AGO Jan. 17, 1968
BENTON — The Saline County Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors has adopted a resolution urging County Judge John F. (Buddy) Parker to rejoin the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission of Pulaski and Saline Counties. The resolution said Judge Parker should attempt to rejoin Metroplan “at a negotiated price” unless he could come up with a better idea for a planning program for the county. Judge Parker withdrew Saline County from Metroplan last week, bitterly attacking the metropolitan planning program as an effort to destroy the authority of local governments and place more power in the hands of the federal government.
25 YEARS AGO Jan. 17, 1993
A few of the suspected sources of widespread mercury contamination in fish in the Ouachita and Saline rivers have been eliminated in the past four months, but the source — or sources — of the contamination remain elusive. Extensive testing by the state Department of Pollution Control and Ecology shows that it’s easier to eliminate suspects than to pinpoint a cause. Officials believe the mercury is getting into the rivers from the air. In late September, the Lower Ouachita River Work Group listed 13 possible sources of the mercury contamination in fish in the Ouachita and Saline rivers.
10 YEARS AGO Jan. 17, 2008
When he got off work from AFCO Steel in Little Rock early Tuesday, Richard Ivey was looking forward to seeing his wife, said Saul Deleon, a friend and co-worker of Ivey’s. The couple had been separated since around Thanksgiving, but on Tuesday, Ivey told Deleon his wife had called and said she wanted to come back home, Deleon said. But Pulaski County sheriff’s office deputies say she had something else in mind. When Richard Ivey went to the house at 5809 Bracy Road in southern Pulaski County, where his wife, Brenda, had been living, he was shot to death.