MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1995
More than 4,000 visitors showed up for “Imperial Tombs of China” Monday, helping push attendance to a projected 416,000 for the five-month run of the Wonders series exhibition.the closing day was the biggest Monday attendance since the Chinese exhibition opened April 18, pushing it well beyond its 400,000 break-even goal. ”I couldn’t be prouder,” said Wonders director Jon Thompson. ”I feel very good, but I’m also relieved it’s over because we can finally take a break from sevenday workweeks.” Thompson still is negotiating for an exhibition next summer from the Titanic. At the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau, president Kevin Kane said attendance for the five-month Chinese exhibition is in the range that Wonders officials had predicted.
50 years ago — 1970
The passion of Frank Holloman is a contagious thing. It is for God, country and motherhood. It is for his own sense of right. For the last two years and nine months, as director of fire and police, Frank Holloman — a Mississippi boy who once studied for the ministry — has worked his evangelistic fervor on Memphis. When he leaves to become coordinator of security at the University of Missouri, with him will go his passion — the passion with which he approaches any challenge. That passion is both his strength and his weakness. His friends agree with that statement. So do his enemies and so does he.
75 years ago — 1945
Lt. Gen. William Hood Simpson will probably be Second Army’s new commanding general. The tall, lean Texan, whose Ninth Army helped make military history in Europe this year and whose troops were first to reach the Rhine, is slated to succeed Lt. Gen. Lloyd R. Fredendall. The latter announced his intention to retire a few days ago. Neither the War Department nor Second Army Headquarters would verify reports of Gen. Simpson’s assignment but it has something far more than mere gossip.
100 years ago — 1920 Announcement was made yesterday that W.M. Flook of New York, president of the Memphis Gas & Electric Company, is expected in Memphis by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. Mr. Flook is coming to Memphis to lend his assistance in straightening out the present situation, in which the receivers of the company are more or less at odds with the city administration and the executive of the Chamber of Commerce.
A conference was held yesterday morning at 11:30 o’clock in Mayor Paine’s office... which lasted more than an hour.