MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1996
Southland Greyhound Park in West Memphis has a new enemy, and it’s not the lure of one-armed bandits and craps tables along Tunica County’s stretch of the Mississippi River. This time the drumbeat threatening the survival of the 43-year-old dog racing emporium is coming from the pews of fundamentalist Christian churches across Arkansas. Just as Prohibition shut down taverns and liquor stores to deal with the evils of drink in the early 20th century, a coalition of church congregations is attacking Arkansas’ two parimutuel tracks — the source, it believes, of a biennial effort to legalize lotteries and casinos. A petition drive spearheaded by the Christian Civic Action Committee has secured enough signatures to place on the November ballot a proposed constitutional amendment outlawing all forms of gambling in Arkansas. It announced last week a voter registration drive to sign up 250,000 new voters — presumably anti-gamblers — to help pass it. If approved, the gambling prohibition would force the closure of Southland and Oaklawn Park — two of the top tourist attractions in the state — and eliminate an estimated 6,000 direct and ancillary jobs.
50 years ago — 1971
Sol Wise, 66, of Sumner, Miss., sat in the Sheraton-peabody lobby yesterday afternoon wearing his Wahabi Temple fez and his Shrine name tag. He pulled on a cigar. “I wanted to get down here early and watch the action.” The action at The Peabody was at the registration desk where more than 11,000 Shriners from nine states — Tennessee, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida — will check in before 4 p.m. today. Also attending the four-day Southeastern Shrine Association Convention are about 5,000 wives and children of Shriners.
75 years ago — 1946
Col. Roane Waring, president of the Memphis Street Railway Co., expressed approval yesterday of most of the changes on bus and coach routes recommended by Harland Bartholomew and said he hoped the company and city officials could agree soon on the proposals. “On the whole, I think they are just fine,” Col. Waring said. “There a few I don’t believe are practical,” he said, citing the recommendation of the nationally-known city planner for a bus on Union Avenue. Col. Waring said he had the most “serious objection” to this suggestion because during peak traffic hours Union Avenue is “too crowded” for the buses to maintain a fast schedule.
125 years ago — 1896
Bolton, Tenn. - The completion of the new pike between Bolton and Brunswick yesterday was the occasion for great rejoicing on the part of citizens here. They prepared a sumptuous feast for the prison guards and the chain gang and took it to a cool grove at the end of the new pike. Five miles of rock road from Brunswick to Bolton is no small blessing for these parts.