Other days
100 YEARS AGO Aug. 22, 1921
■ TEXARKANA — The Arkansas side police late last night arrested two young strangers and locked them up on charges of carrying pistols. On being searched at the jail, papers were found on them showing they were from Ann Arbor, Mich. A telegram immediately was sent asking about them. A message came back that they were Robert A. Hicks and Dennis Hoague and that they are wanted on charges of stealing a Ford sedan on August 12. The youths had a sedan in their possession when arrested. They said they had made the entire distance with the car, traveling at night as well as day. They refused to say how they came into possession of the car, but said they were on their way to Colorado. Officers are expected from Ann Arbor by tomorrow night to take the fugitives back.
50 YEARS AGO Aug. 22, 1971
■ FORT SMITH — Chancellor Warren Kimbrough Saturday issued a temporary injunction against a contracting firm, preventing it from dumping Fort Smith’s garbage in an abandoned mine pit near the suburban community of Bonanza. Kimbrough said there was sufficient evidence that the landfill operations caused a health hazard and that additional testing was needed to satisfy the court that Bonanza’s water wells would not be contaminated by the operation. The city of Bonanza asked for the injunction against the firm of Griffin, Syrgley, and Evans of Fort Smith, who signed the agreement with the city of Fort Smith August 11 for a landfill operation.
25 YEARS AGO Aug. 22, 1996
■ MARVELL — Fires burned two predominantly black churches to the ground early Wednesday in the rural community of Turner, astride the Phillips-Monroe county line in eastern Arkansas, a federal official said. Bill Buford, resident agent in charge of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms office at Little Rock, said the two churches probably burned before 2 a.m. in the community about nine miles southwest of Marvell. Buford said agents from his office were investigating the fires at St. Matthew’s Missionary Baptist Church, on Arkansas 1 in far eastern Monroe County, and the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, on a county road in far western Phillips County. “They appeared to be wood-frame, small churches. They were pretty isolated. They literally burned to the ground,” Buford said. He said the cause of the fires is unknown. … The blazes mark the second and third suspicious church fires in Arkansas this year. In June, investigators pored over the rubble of the New Calvary Church of God in Camden for clues. The cause of the fire was said not to be an accident, but also not declared to be arson.
10 YEARS AGO Aug. 22, 2011
■ CONWAY — About 4,000 pounds of food and 3,600 pounds of clothing were destroyed Sunday when a fire gutted a food pantry’s building in Conway, the group’s director said. Director Rick Harvey said it was the second time the Soul Food Cafe Mission has lost its building in a fire. “It’s just unbelievable,” Harvey said. Founded 10 years ago, the all-volunteer group hands out about 185 boxes of food a week and serves a lunch and breakfast every Tuesday. The fire started about 8:19 a.m. and destroyed most of the contents of the building, which is connected by a breezeway to the Four Winds Church on Dave Ward Drive, Conway Assistant Fire Chief Mike Winter said. He said fire officials are investigating whether the fire started near a forklift, which Harvey said had been left charging. The fire does not appear to be suspicious, Winter said. No one was injured in the fire.