Other days

100 YEARS AGO March 6, 1921

STAMPS — The power plant, blacksmith shop and boiler room of the Arkansas and Louisiana railroad shops here were destroyed by fire shortly after 9 o’clock tonight. The loss was estimated at over $100,000. Origin of the fire is not known. It started in the blacksmith shop. Fires in the plant were extinguished at 5 o’clock this afternoon when the crew stopped work. Several shopmen suggested that the blaze may have been of incendiary origin. All said that when they left the shops at 5 o’clock there was no fire in the building.

50 YEARS AGO March 6, 1971

PINE BLUFF — The Watson Chapel School Board has allowed students at the District’s private schools to use state-owned textbooks after transferring to the private schools. C. E. Garman Jr., vice president of the board, said the Board had asked the state Education Department if the policy was legal. In a letter to members of the School Board and other school officials, Dean H. Whiteside of Little Rock, director of the Division of Instructional Material, quoted state law that said the state shall provide textbooks “for all pupils attending the public schools of the state, without cost to said pupils, in grades 1-8, inclusive.”

25 YEARS AGO March 6, 1996

■ Citing his official duties, President Clinton on Tuesday asked a federal judge to excuse him from testifying in person at the criminal trial of Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and the president’s former Whitewater partners. Clinton’s insistence that he testify via videotape drew an angry response from the attorney for one of those partners. “We need Bill Clinton to have the guts to come to Little Rock, Arkansas, raise his right hand and set the record straight,” attorney Sam Heuer of Little Rock said during a break in jury selection in the trial of his client, James McDougal.

10 YEARS AGO March 6, 2011

JONESBORO — For the second time in six months, voters in the Valley View School District will decide on a proposed 4.9-mill increase that would fund construction projects for the growing school system. The district will hold a special election Tuesday to decide if it can build a $25 million, two-story high school building. In September, voters turned down a similar proposed increase by 40 votes — 599-559. “This time, we’ve painted a different picture for our patrons,” said Gaylon Taylor, assistant superintendent of the 2,346-student district.