MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago – 1996
Some City Council members were pleased to learn that a group is interested in the vacant and deteriorating E. H. Crump Building at 110 Adams. Council members paused, however, when they heard the other half of the story. The Fire Museum of Memphis wants only part of the building. So the council is trying to determine if giving the museum a slice of the 95-year-old building will help the city in donating the rest. The Fire Museum of Memphis has requested half of the 40,000-square-foot building to use for storage space and for future expansion of the proposed museum next door at 118 Adams in the old Fire Station No. 1. Construction on the museum is expected to begin in early October. Museum volunteers have raised about $2.8 million of the estimated $3.8 million cost to construct the museum. The museum board’s newest member, 6-foot-11 former University of Memphis basketball center Lorenzen Wright talked about the museum proposal. ”I wanted to get involved in something that could save lives. There are a bunch of kids getting killed in fires,” Wright said afterwards while signing autographs. ”The Fire Museum is going to educate people, both kids and adults.”
50 years ago – 1971
His Biggest Fan: – Thanks, he said. Indeed, he would like to join the Friends of the FBI, an organization dedicated to the proposition the FBI and its director, J. Edgar Hoover, are exemplary institutions. But, said the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, at the time a contribution would be impossible. It seems that Berrigan was one of hundreds who received an application to join the organization. His was mailed to his current residence – the federal correctional institution in Danbury, Conn.
75 years ago – 1946
WASHINGTON – The average per capita income in the United States reached an all-time high of $1,150 in 1995, the Commerce Department announced Wednesday night. The figure represents an increase of 2 percent from the 1944 level of $1,133 and an increase of $575 per capita over 1940.
125 years ago – 1896
The mayor was seated in his leathercushioned, rearing-back chair yesterday morning and looked none the worse for his trip to Chicago and his side jaunt to St. Louis. “Did you get much information, Mr. Mayor?” asked a Commercial Appeal reporter. “That I did,” was his reply. “Those Chicago people gave me an insight into street cleaning as conducted by their city with great cheerfulness, and the St. Louis people were not a whit less cordial in their reception, so you see I am, as it were, behind the scenes of the street sweeping of these two big towns.”