Other days
100 YEARS AGO Feb. 18, 1923
PINE BLUFF — About $4,000 worth of radium belonging to Dr. O. G. Blackwell is believed to be buried under several hundred pounds of waste paper in the basement of the Citizens Bank building. The radium is contained in seven small needles, no larger than phonograph needles. While treating a patient in his office yesterday afternoon, Dr. Blackwell removed from a patient a double strip of adhesive tape, between which was $4,200 worth of radium. He received a hurry call over the telephone to attend a baby. The tape that contained the radium was soiled on one side. Not wishing to put it away in that condition, and rather than take time to remove the needles, Dr. Blackwell placed the tape on his desk and hastened to answer the call. He did not return to his office and thought nothing more of the radium. On his arrival to the office this morning, Dr. Blackwell asked the maid about the radium. She knew nothing about it and told him she had straightened up his desk and thrown the tape in the waste basket.
50 YEARS AGO Feb. 18, 1973
■ Hundreds of persons watched the second “great steamboat race” Saturday on the Arkansas River, but there wasn’t much excitement as the Delta Queen beat the Border Star by half a mile. The Delta Queen had been allowed a quarter-mile head start, and the Border Star never caught up. The race began about 3:45 p.m., about four miles downstream from the finish line just below the Rock Island Lines bridge. In freezing weather, made even colder by the wind blowing off the water, the Delta Queen, America’s last overnight paddlewheel steamboat, breezed home about 4:15 p.m., far ahead of Jack Trotter’s paddlewheeler, the Border Star.
25 YEARS AGO Feb. 18, 1998
MOUNTAIN HOME — Nearly 18,000 military veterans in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri are expected to use the Little Rock Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s first community-based outpatient clinic, a VA official said Tuesday. Scheduled to open this spring, the Mountain Home clinic will provide primary medical care to veterans who now must drive three or more hours to Little Rock for such basics as routine checkups, said Sharon Palmer, the center’s public affairs officer. The Little Rock VA is considering community-based outpatient clinics in Hot Springs, Mena and El Dorado, Palmer said.
10 YEARS AGO Feb. 18, 2013
■ A Saline County art and resource center for disabled children hopes to get Quorum Court approval Tuesday for a grant application for the center’s ongoing expansion. If the justices of the peace vote “Yes,” the county will apply for a community development block grant for up to $200,000 from the Arkansas Community and Economic Development Program. I Can! Arts and Resource Center in East End would use the funds to build a kitchen and large multipurpose room. The county secured a similar grant for the center in 2010 that went toward its first phase — a building and deck, completed last summer.