Other days

100 YEARS AGO

Jan. 31, 1924

■ A special meeting of the Broadway-Main Street Bridge Commission and traction officials held yesterday afternoon to effect if possible a solution to the bridge street car service problem failed of its purpose, it was announced after the meeting. … In the desire to obtain some result, Ex-Governor George W. Donaghey, chairman of the commission, kept the representatives in session until 6 o’clock. The traction officials repeated their offer of $1,200 a year, while the bridge commissioners continued insistent in their demand for half cent return for each passenger carried over the bridge.

50 YEARS AGO

Jan. 31, 1974

■ Federal Judge J. Smith Henley has overturned a 1968 rape conviction in Desha County Circuit Court with the observation that the proceedings there against the defendant “were tainted with a substantial lack of judicial thoroughness and by a lack of representation [of the defendant] by his court-appointed attorney.” The attorney in the 1968 case was Marion Gill of Dumas. Judge Henley said in his memorandum of opinion, filed Tuesday, that if the state desired it could retry Harold Sullivan of Desha County, now an inmate at Cummins Prison Farm, but that it must hold the trial before August 24.

25 YEARS AGO

Jan. 31, 1999

■ Two downtown Little Rock national historic districts were hard hit by one of the Jan. 21 tornadoes, but enough of the buildings will survive to prevent loss of the national status. To maintain national historic status, 51 percent of the structures must be classified as contributing to the character of the district, state preservation officials who surveyed the districts said last week. … Of the 278 properties in the MacArthur Park Historic District, 197 are contributing. In the Governor’s Mansion Historic District, 511 of the 689 properties are contributing. … Of the 444 historic properties surveyed in the two districts last week, 19 of them were determined to be destroyed. Of the 19, 13 were National Register properties. Heavily damaged were 107 buildings, some of them so badly that they may be razed, and 249 others were either slightly or moderately damaged.

10 YEARS AGO

Jan. 31, 2014

■ Bank of the Ozarks has agreed to buy Summit Bancorp of Arkadelphia for $216 million, the Little Rock firm said Thursday. Bank of the Ozarks is the third-largest bank in the state, with about $4.8 billion in assets. Summit is the sixth-largest bank based in the state, with about $1.2 billion in assets and 24 offices. After the purchase, Bank of the Ozarks will remain the state’s third-largest bank, behind Arvest Bank of Fayetteville and Centennial Bank of Conway. It will have 90 offices in Arkansas. It is the 11th acquisition for Bank of the Ozarks since 2010 and its largest.