MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1993
MARION, Ark. — Michael Wayne ‘Damien’ Echols, a suspect in three boys’ slayings, took a drug overdose in jail Tuesday, an official said. Bob Bretherick, chief jailer of Crittenden County, said Echols did not appear to be trying to kill himself because he called the guards as soon as he took the pills. Echols, 18, took 12 tablets of the prescription antidepressant Amitriptyline that his mother brought to the jail Saturday, said Bretherick. She told jailers that Echols would have seizures without the medicine.
50 years ago — 1968
The imagination of Memphis has been fired by an idea barely a month old which has transformed 26 neighborhood eyesores into sparkling playgrounds for children. The clean mini-parks burst onto the city in May. They now may spread from one end of the city to another, pulling into their contagion mothers, fathers, children, businessmen, land owners, architects, city officials and just plain people. William E. Shelton III, chairman of the committee that launched the mini-park program, said yesterday a total of 50 are expected to be created by the end of this month.
75 years ago — 1943
American Bomber Station, England — The battlescarred Flying Fortress, Memphis Belle, which has been retired from active service after completing 25 missions over enemy territory, was given an official farewell here yesterday. It then started back to the United States with its crew to engage in a War Bond Drive. Named for Miss Margaret Polk of Memphis, it will be the first American warplane to return from the European theater under its own power.
100 years ago — 1918
The local Marine recruiting station issued a call yesterday for enlistments in the new United States Marine Corps flying cadets. Scores of eager young patriots have already responded. Applicants must have two years of college and weigh not more than 170 pounds. Those accepted will study aeronautics for two months at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
125 years ago — 1893
WASHINGTON — Words can never describe the full horror of the tragedy which took place here yesterday. Without warning the floors of the old Ford Theater building collapsed and the building fell in like a house of cards. At least 500 government clerks were working in the building at the time, and at least 30 of them are known dead. Purchased by the government as a national shrine after Lincoln was assassinated there, the theater has been used as a federal office building for many years. Congress condemned the building as unsafe in 1885, but refused to appropriate money for a new office building.