Other days
100 YEARS AGO
July 24, 1919
■ FORT SMITH – An agreement was reached today between the City Department of Health and M.Z. Bair, sanitary engineer for the Arkansas Board of Health, whereby the city will abandon the practice of burning garbage within the city limits. Engineer Bair also approved improvements contemplated at the municipal water plant. He went to Prairie Creek to examine the water supply there. Three cases of typhoid fever in one family in the northeastern part of the city were reported to the Board of Health today. An examination of water in wells in that neighborhood showed three wells highly contaminated with sewerage disposal, due to the lack of sanitary sewers. Health Board officials say they fear all wells in that vicinity will have to be condemned.
50 YEARS AGO
July 24, 1969
■ ARKADELPHIA – A number of cars in a Missouri Pacific Lines freight train derailed about eight miles south of Arkadelphia Wednesday night. Some of them exploded. The Arkansas State Police reported that about 32 cars, most of them tank cars, were ablaze. …The derailment took place near the Curtis Community about a mile east of U. S. Highway 67. Fire equipment and fire-mem from Arkadelphia and Gurdon were sent to the scene, authorities said. The State Police said persons in the area of the derailment believed some of the cars contained gasoline, asphalt mixes, chlorine, chloride, sodium, magnesium, plastics, and other materials. However, railroad officials in Little Rock said early today they could not confirm what was in the cars or how many might be on fire.
25 YEARS AGO
July 24, 1994
■ A man with a revolver robbed a Little Rock gas station early Saturday morning, police said. An employee of the Jackpot at 7300 Geyer Springs Road told police a man entered the store at 12:05 a.m., picked up a soft drink and took it to the cash register. The clerk told police she rang up the soda but the man told her he didn’t have his wallet and went outside to get it. The man returned with a revolver wedged in his waistband and told the clerk to “put the money in a bag quick or I will blow you away,” police said. Police said the gunman took an unknown amount of cash and fled on foot, headed south on Geyer Springs Road.
10 YEARS AGO
July 24, 2009
■ Police in Jacksonville and North Little Rock are searching for a man they believe robbed convenience stores in both cities Thursday morning. April Kiser, a spokesman for the Jacksonville Police Department, said in a news release that a man armed with a handgun took an undetermined amount of money from a clerk at Buck’s Country Store at 1605 J.P. Wright Loop Road around 4:15 a.m. Thursday. Sgt. Terry Kuykendall, a spokesman for the North Little Rock Police Department, said that about 6:43 a.m. Thursday, the Exxon gas station at 1504 Arkansas 161 was robbed and that the description of the robber matches that of the suspect in the Jacksonville case. … Detectives also want to speak with a “person of interest” seen at Buck’s before the robbery because that person might have information that could aid the investigation.