Spirit of the radio

J ULY 1 2

25 years ago: 1988

50 years ago: 1963

NASHVILLE — The state Racing Commission can approve licenses for horse race gambling at more than one track in the Memphis area provided that their racing seasons do not overlap, the state attorney general has ruled. In a separate ruling, the attorney general’s office also held that state racing law permits horse race gambling on hackney ponies directed by radio-controlled mechanical jockeys.

There’s one guy down at Central Police Station most persons don’t fool around with. “Don’t mess with him,” one woman cringes. “He’ll fight.” “He” is Jeff. And Jeff is a turtle. Whether “he” is really a “he” is something you’ll have to find out for yourself. For lack of other proof, all you can go by is the name. It’s scrawled in big, silver letters on his shell, and no one knows who put it there. He was just there one

day about 14 years ago. He’s been there ever since.

75 years ago: 1938

Led by Scoutmaster Kenneth Moffett, Boy Scout Troop 17 camped out on the Loosahatchie River last weekend, sleeping on willow boughs. They strung a trotline in the Loosahatchie, lost all their bait and did not catch a single fish.

100 years ago: 1913

Five races are on the weekly program to be presented this afternoon by the Memphis Fair and Driving Association at the Fairgrounds. Both pacing and trotting events are on the card.

125 years ago: 1888

The cotton room of J.T. Fargason & Co., located over their grocery at 369 Shelby, was damaged by fire yesterday. The blaze is believed to have been caused by spontaneous combustion.

RICHARD GARDNER/ THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL FILES WDIA disc jockey Nat D. Williams (left) talks to Robert Henry in Henry’s pool room on Beale Street in 1974. The segregated South became colorblind on the airwaves of WDIA, beginning with Williams and the 1948 debut of his “Tan Town Jamboree” program....