Other days
100 YEARS AGO
May 16, 1923
EL DORADO — During a terrific electrical storm at 2 o’clock this morning, lightning struck a big gas well, owned by Smitherman and McDonald, on the Roland lease … and in an instant, the well was ablaze. It was flowing at the rate of 25 million cubic feet of gas daily and the flames, mounting high, illuminated the oil fields for a radius of 15 miles. The fire is still burning tonight, but a bell-shaped apparatus, used last year to subdue the big fire at the Jackson-Workman well, is being rushed to the scene near Louann, in the hope of snuffing out the flames by tomorrow morning.
50 YEARS AGO
May 16, 1973
■ A 300-pound cannon was stolen between about 2 a.m. and dawn Tuesday from the front lawn of the home of Charles L. Carty, commander of the General Robert C. Newton Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans … between Baseline Road and Mabelvale near Mann Road, in southwest Little Rock. Carty said the Civil War reproduction was made of cast iron and might explode if an attempt was made to fire it, using modern smokeless powder. Little Rock has only one source for black gun powder, the type used to fire the cannon, and Carty said that source was temporarily out of the powder. He expressed concern that the thieves might try to use modern powder.
25 YEARS AGO
May 16, 1998
■ The well-preserved skull of a predatory dinosaur found in Madagascar suggests that a large family of the giant reptiles was able to migrate and breed across an Antarctic land bridge almost until the clan was wiped out 65 million years ago. Discovery of several specimens of a dinosaur, called Majungatholus atopus, reported Friday in the journal Science, fills some nagging blanks about the animals inhabiting the Indian Ocean island off the coast of Africa during the Cretaceous era that began 140 million years ago and ended with a mass extinction. For nearly a century, paleontologists have been finding serrated teeth of the theropod dinosaurs on the island by the hundreds, but virtually no fossilized bones. Then, in 1996, an expedition found several sets of fossils from the animals, including pieces of the tail and a near-complete skull.
10 YEARS AGO
May 16, 2013
MAYFLOWER — Workers trying to clean up and restore an oil-contaminated neighborhood will remain in this small Faulkner County community for at least a few months, and efforts continued Wednesday to remove heavy crude from a marshy cove of Lake Conway. … The number of on-site workers had dropped earlier this week to about 320 from a peak of about 750, Exxon Mobil spokesman Michael Kontos said. Referring to some of the long-term work ahead, Dodson said, “Even after a piece of property is restored, it needs to be monitored for any oil that might pop up that didn’t surface immediately.” Exxon Mobil has removed tainted soil in the subdivision and said it was replacing it with hauled-in dirt.