Other days
100 YEARS AGO Feb. 10, 1922
LONOKE — J.C. Blassingame, 25-year-old farmer, literally whistled his way into jail today. The foreman asked him if it were true that he had gotten hold of some liquor during the last two years. He then asked where and how and under what circumstances. …
“Well, gentlemen,” J.C. said, “I really don’t know who I got it from. You see, every once in a while I hear somebody stop at my front gate and whistle, like this (demonstrating), and when I go out I don’t find anything but some moonshine.” … “My man, you’ve simply whistled your way into the county jail,” or words to that effect, was Judge George Clark’s comment.
50 YEARS AGO Feb. 10, 1972
EL DORADO — A partially filled gasoline storage tank at the American Oil Company refinery ruptured and burned Tuesday night. No one was injured. No estimate of the damage had been made Wednesday and the refinery spokesmen said the cause of the rupture had not been determined. … John Feeny, a company spokesman, said several small tanks, a pump house and related pumping and piping facilities burned.
… The company had announced last year that the refinery would close next month.
25 YEARS AGO Feb. 10, 1997
■ Arkansas civil rights pioneer Daisy Bates was in Washington on Sunday to receive the Margaret Chase Smith Award. Arkansas Secretary of State Sharon Priest nominated the 81-year-old Bates for the annual award, which recognizes acts of courage and character. … Bates and her husband, L.C. Bates, supported the nine black students who integrated Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957. During the crisis, the State Press — a newspaper published by L.C. Bates — was the leading voice of the black community, and Daisy Bates was the state chairman of the NAACP. Born in Huttig in Union County, Daisy Lee Gatson married L.C. Bates in 1942 and settled in Little Rock. The two joined the NAACP and argued for racial justice, partly through the State Press, which attacked segregation, police misconduct and inequities in the criminal justice system. … In 1960, Daisy Bates moved to New York City and wrote her memoirs of the crisis, “The Long Shadow of Little Rock,” published in 1962 with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt.
10 YEARS AGO Feb. 10, 2012
■ Additional charges have been filed against three of the 71 people indicted in October in federal court in a drug-trafficking and public corruption investigation centered in Helena-West Helena and Marianna. …
The investigation, dubbed Operation Delta Blues, led to an initial roundup of 51 defendants beginning in the pre-dawn hours of Oct. 11, when more than 700 federal, state and local law enforcement officers fanned out to serve arrest warrants and seize contraband. Since that time, five defendants, including the top drug trafficker and two law enforcement officers, have pleaded guilty.