Other days

100 YEARS AGO

July 8, 1917

TEXARKANA — It was hot in Texarkana last night. Many people said that it was almost unbearably hot, and they tried ice-water, electric fans and auto rides, in efforts to keep cool. But Dick Davis, aged 22, adopted a method of mitigating the heat that not only cooled him and caused his neighbors to forget the heat for a few moments, but brought an auto ride and a trip to the municipal cooler as well. Some of Davis’ neighbors living along East Tenth street excitedly called the police station early this morning and said that a young man was walking about the residence streets unhampered by clothing and seemingly unembarrassed.

50 YEARS AGO July 8, 1967

PINE BLUFF — Mrs. Clair Ann Morrow said from her jail cell here Friday that she paid “a man at the gate” $150 to help her husband Odell Morrow, 24, escape from Tucker Prison Farm Thursday. Morrow, whom Mrs. Morrow said she picked up from a ditch near the gate about 2 p.m., and the woman were captured by State Police at a roadblock near England within hours of the escape. They apparently were headed for Oregon, where four other Tucker escapees have successfully fought efforts to bring them back to Arkansas.

25 YEARS AGO July 8, 1992

RUSSELLVILLE — A truck driver was sentenced to four years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the death of a high school student. Rodney Dean Pike, 38, of Phoenix pleaded guilty in Pope County Circuit Court in the Nov. 2, 1991, death of Jennie Lyn Swilley, 16, of Dardanelle (Yell County). Authorities said Swilley, a cheerleader, was killed and 12 students were injured when Pike’s truck struck a small school bus on Interstate 40 near Atkins (Pope County).

10 YEARS AGO July 8, 2007

■ A proposal to close off a downtown Little Rock street has been stalled so sparring neighbors can try to work out a compromise. The Cathedral School had asked the city to close Spring Street between 16th and 17th streets so students could walk the school and church grounds without being exposed to traffic. The school and affiliated Trinity Episcopal Church lie on each side of the oneway street. That idea stirred up the church’s downtown neighbors, who argue that closing the street would restrict traffic and otherwise cause headaches. For now the plan is on hold.