MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1996
The U.S. Postal Service is sending customers a late Christmas gift — their mail. Undelivered mail was discovered last week in Blytheville, Ark., in air transport containers. The mail was postmarked at Christmastime last year. None of the mail was for delivery in the Mid-south but for ”somewhere up North,” said Beth Barnett, U.S. Postal Service spokesperson. The company responsible for flying the mail to its destination during the busy holiday season last year made the discovery. Barnett wouldn’t reveal the name of the company. The mail has since arrived in Memphis, where it is being processed and sorted. ”We’re in the process of ... investigating,” Barnett said.
50 years ago — 1971
ORANGE, Texas – Of the 503 persons under 21 eligible to vote in recent city council elections, records show that only three cast ballots. “But look at the example of the over-21 set,” City Secretary Mavis Mcclure said Thursday. “A total of 201 voted out of 9,000 eligible.”
75 years ago —1946
NEW ORLEANS – A new type of pants thief has been reported in New Orleans, a thief who after taking his victim’s trousers — replete with money — leaves his own trousers in exchange. Police reported Sunday night that the whimsical marauder entered the residence of Joseph T. Kelly. The pair of pants left behind by the burglar, police said, were stolen a week ago from another New Orleanian’s home. 100 years ago — 1921
ST. LOUIS – The four towboats being constructed by the United States government for use on the Mississippi River between St. Louis and St. Paul in an experiment similar to the one it has been conducting between St. Louis and New Orleans for nearly three years are 90 percent complete at the yards of the Minneapolis Steel and Machinery Company on Lake St. Croix, near Stillwater, Minn. Nineteen barges to complete the fleet already have been constructed.
125 years ago — 1896
Secretary Nat C. Graves has received a letter from Secretary N.B. Williams of Fayetteville, Ark., calling the attention of the Merchants’ Exchange to the incorporation of the White River Valley & Western Railroad Company, whose purpose if carried out, will open a new territory to Memphis and give the merchants of this city a new and valuable field.