Other days

100 YEARS AGO Jan. 30, 1924

Two unmasked bandits, between 20 and 40 years of age, both armed with revolvers, last night robbed Dr. Robert Caldwell … of his Lincoln Touring car and between $60 and $80 in cash, and after forcing the surgeon to ride with them for more than 20 minutes, put him out at a street corner and drove away in his automobile. Dr. Caldwell reported the robbery to the police immediately.

50 YEARS AGO Jan. 30, 1974

■ The police answered two burglar alarms late Monday and early Tuesday at Finnegan’s Highland Pharmacy … and arrested three suspects. The first alarm sounded about 10:15 p.m. Monday and when the police arrived, they discovered an air conditioning vent open. They called the owner, Hugh McKnight, and he told the police that he had seen two suspicious men in the store earlier in the day and had taken down their car license number. The police checked the vehicle’s registration and went to the 3900 block of West Eleventh Street. They saw the car and questioned its two occupants. The two men were charged with burglary and grand larceny. …The police found a plastic trash bag containing drugs taken from the store in a yard of a house near where the suspects had been stopped. A third man was arrested inside the store after a second alarm went off about 12:45 a.m.

25 YEARS AGO Jan. 30, 1999

OZAN — The Arkansas State Police issued a warrant for the owner of an Ozan night club accusing him of arson in the New Year’s Day fire at the southern Arkansas bar. Police investigator Scott Clark said owner Joe Brown and Shirley McFadden, a friend of Brown’s, may have colluded to burn down the night club to collect insurance money. McFadden, 76, of Ozan was arrested Thursday, Clark said. Hempstead County sheriff’s deputies said Brown told them that he found the building had burned when he went there Jan. 1 to check on the club’s liquor supply. He has been a suspect all along, Clark said. “The circumstances of the fire led us to be suspicious of Mr. Brown from the very beginning,” Clark said. … Police had evidence placing both Brown and McFadden at the bar at the time the fire started but did not know yet how the fire began, Clark said.

10 YEARS AGO Jan. 30, 2014

■ Arkansas has experienced an 83 percent increase in whooping-cough cases since 2012 and a 470 percent increase since 2011, according to the Arkansas Department of Health. Whooping cough, also called pertussis, is a bacterial infection that can cause coldlike symptoms and fever and is characterized by coughing fits. It can be fatal to infants. In 2011, the state recorded 80 cases. In 2012, it was 248. Last year, it logged 455. … Wheeler said one reason why the number of cases has gone up is because the whooping-cough vaccine isn’t as effective as predicted. Originally expected to provide immunity for 10 years, Wheeler said, the vaccine is instead proving effective for only three or four years. … The vaccine — called Tdap — was implemented in the 1990s to replace one that had bad side effects, Wheeler said.