Other days

100 YEARS AGO Aug. 21, 1918

SEARCY — Another large rattlesnake has been brought here by L. L. Walker, a merchant of Higginson. The reptile is four and one-half feet long, has 10 rattles, and was captured alive by Elmer Wheatley. It was caught about one mile from the place where one was killed a week ago, the first one measuring six and one-half feet, after it was stuffed, without the head. It had nineteen rattles. Mr. Wheatley offers the live snake for sale, saying that he will not kill it but will turn it loose if he can not find a buyer. He says he has the power to cure snake bites without the standard remedy, and says he would lose that power were he to kill the snake. This power, he says, was handed down to him by his ancestors.

50 YEARS AGO Aug. 21, 1968

There is a dearth of hospital beds in Little Rock and North Little Rock and two hospitals have called the shortage severe. John Gilbreath, administrator of Arkansas Baptist Medical Center, and Norman Roberts Jr., administrator of Memorial Hospital in North Little Rock, issued a joint statement Tuesday saying that some reservations at each hospital had to be canceled during the weekend of August 17 because there wasn’t room. Gilbreath said admissions at Baptist had been reduced to a day-to-day quota based on how many patients were released that day. He said there was a waiting list of about 20 persons seeking entry into the hospital.