Other days
100 YEARS AGO Feb. 17, 1923
COTTON PLANT — Cotton Plant is in the midst of an oil excitement. The drilling crew at the Knox & Adams well, six miles northeast of here, started bailing the hole today and brought out several bailerfuls of oil, it is reported. Oil men here tonight said the crude is of a good grade, and that indications are excellent for a producing oil well. Several Memphis business men, interested in the test, were present when the bailer brought up the oil. When the result of the bailing was learned here, many persons hurried to the well. The well is on the farm of Dr. R. R. James. It is down about 1,900 feet.
50 YEARS AGO Feb. 17, 1973
■ County Judge Frank Mackey and Juvenile Court Referee Mary Burt Nash conceded in a document filed Friday in Federal District Court that inmates at the Pulaski County Juvenile Detention Center were kept in solitary confinement all day and must wear pajamas at all times. Mrs. Nash and Mackey also conceded that no preliminary hearing was held for inmates before their incarceration to determine if there was “probable cause” to detain them. Mrs. Dorothy Thomas, of Little Rock, filed a suit January 22 charging that conditions and procedures at the juvenile facility were unconstitutional. She filed the suit on behalf of her son, Mitchell Moore, 14, and all other Center inmates against Mrs. Nash and Mackey. The suit charged that inmates were kept in solitary confinement, couldn’t have visitors, must wear pajamas, and were housed in small cells with primitive or nonexistent toilet facilities.
25 YEARS AGO Feb. 17, 1998
PARAGOULD — A jail escapee is believed to have fled Arkansas, the Greene County sheriff said Sunday. “We have information that he’s supposed to be in Biloxi, Mississippi. He left with his girlfriend,” Sheriff Dan Langston said. Edward Ferguson, 26, of Paragould was a trusty at the jail when he escaped about 6:25 p.m. Saturday. He cut a hole in a chain-link fence at the back of the jail and made his getaway, authorities said. “Because he was a trusty, he was able to work out in the yard. He had access to the outside yard,” said David Lange, county jail administrator.
10 YEARS AGO Feb. 17, 2013
FORT SMITH — Sebastian County Judge David Hudson proposed that the county contribute an additional $760,000 for an aquatics center to restore features that were eliminated to keep the cost within the $8 million the county and Fort Smith agreed to spend. Hudson made the proposal during a meeting Tuesday of the Quorum Court and Fort Smith Board of Directors. County and city officials met to review the joint project and to respond to public complaints that the aquatics center planned for Ben Geren Regional Park was less than what was originally presented. Justice of the Peace Danny Aldridge proposed that the Quorum Court consider an ordinance at its next meeting to appropriate the additional money for the project.