Other days

100 YEARS AGO Jan. 31, 1921

■ A state law giving motor license fees to the counties would probably result in the loss of federal aid for road construction according to the opinion of T. A. McDonald, chief of the Bureau of Public Roads, United States Department of Agriculture, who, under the United States secretary of agriculture, has control over all federal aid funds and approval projects. Mr. McDonald expressed his views in a telegram to O. P. Knott, engineer of the State Highway Department. Mr. McDonald said that it is highly desirable that the state provide first a state fund to meet federal allotments for construction purposes, and, second, a maintenance fund, under control of the State Highway Department.

50 YEARS AGO Jan. 31, 1971

■ The Executive Committee of the Arkansas Republican Party decided Saturday to wait until February 27 to decide whether to disclose the spending of GOP candidates in the 1970 primaries. House Bill 43, which both the state House of Representatives and Senate have approved without dissent during the current session, requires candidates to make public their campaign expenses in primaries.

25 YEARS AGO Jan. 31, 1996

■ The Arkansas Republican Party spent about $115,000 to oppose Gov. Jim Guy Tucker’s highway construction proposal, which was overwhelmingly rejected at the polls in a Jan. 9 special election. Eighty-seven percent of voters opposed the $3.5 billion bond issue that the governor, a Democrat, proposed for highway construction. If the bond issue had been approved, Arkansans would have paid another half-cent in sales taxes and a 6.5 percent excise tax on gasoline at the wholesale level.

10 YEARS AGO Jan. 31, 2011

■ Replacing the Broadway Bridge with a structure that is enduring and beautiful requires public will to pay, according to a champion of an iconic bridge project in Dallas. “This is a difficult decision for a city and a community to make, especially in this economy,” said Gail Thomas, president of the Trinity Trust, the private arm of the Trinity River Corridor Project, a $2.5 billion urban-development project stretching 20 miles through Dallas and encompassing 10,000 acres. The project has raised $100 million in private funds. But she said if people looked back on many of the enduring structures today — the Golden Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower or the Rockefeller Center, to name a few — they were built in difficult economic times and faced skepticism from some who thought the money could be better spent elsewhere.