Other days
100 YEARS AGO Jan. 22, 1922
EL DORADO — Five masked men seized John Walberg, who had just been released from the city jail … and placed him in an automobile, and after driving to the edge of the town administered a coat of tar and feathers. Then they instructed him to “hit the pike” and never return. … It was found Walberg had served a sentence at the prison for sabotage, it being alleged he had damaged pipe lines and oil wells in the Kansas oil fields. … It is supposed that oil men here had decided drastic action was necessary as a warning to I. W. W.’s that they are not wanted in El Dorado.
50 YEARS AGO Jan. 22, 1972
A fire in the electrical panel of a Missouri Pacific Lines train engine caused about $15,000 damage, firemen said. The train was taking a load of lumber south out of Little Rock when the panel caught fire. The train stopped at Chicot Road and the fire department dispatched a truck to the scene and put out the fire. The engine was the third in a three-engine hookup for the train. The burned engine was taken off the tracks and the other two engines continued the trip. The engine is valued at $80,000, firemen said. No one was injured during the fire.
25 YEARS AGO Jan. 22, 1997
A recent Carnegie Medal winner earned a standing ovation Tuesday during the Little Rock Police Department’s annual awards banquet. Kelly Annette Thomason of Little Rock used her family van to help an officer chase down a combative man in August. When pepper spray failed to stop the man and he tried to grab a gun, Thomason, who holds a black belt in karate, left her van and helped wrestle the weapon away from the suspect and handcuff him. Thomason was honored last November with the Police Department’s Citizens Achievement Award and, in December, won the national Carnegie Medal. That award is given to those who risk their lives to save others.
10 YEARS AGO Jan. 22, 2012
DE QUEEN — A Sevier County circuit judge granted a mental-evaluation request Thursday for a father charged with second-degree murder in the death of his newborn son. A judge put the proceedings on hold until space opens up at the State Hospital in Little Rock for a mental evaluation of Vonderick Smith, 23, of De Queen. Smith is charged with second-degree murder in the death of his son, Kason Smith. … Kason died Feb. 15, 2010, after being removed from life support at a Dallas hospital. The child was taken first to a hospital in Idabel, Okla., where he was treated for brain bleeding and 19 broken ribs, according to court documents. He was transferred to a hospital in Paris, Texas, and then to Dallas for treatment. Based on interviews with the mother and others, authorities have previously accused Smith of beating Kason in retaliation for the mother not finding marijuana and painkillers for him.