MID-SOUTH MEMORIES

25 years ago — 1998

The Tennessee Oilers have put it in writing, in a letter to the Memphis and Shelby County Sports Authority: The NFL team intends to comply with its lease for Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. So, are the Oilers staying in Memphis for the 1998 season rather than making a much-speculated early exit for Nashville’s Vanderbilt Stadium? The Oilers declined comment on the letter.

50 years ago — 1973

Concerts International has one of the most illustrious orchestral events scheduled in Memphis in many years lined up as climax of its 1973-74 season. Now it has arranged to lead up to that grand finale with a pair of smaller presentations which in their own categories are among the international best. The main event will be the May 20, 1974, concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra, with Eugene Ormandy conducting. The other presentations will be concerts on Oct. 30, 1973, by the Belgrade Chamber Orchestra, with Antonio Janigro as conductor and cello soloist, and on Jan. 18, 1974, by the Guarneri Quartet, the elite New York string ensemble.

75 years ago — 1948

Rain, which has been pelting Memphis for three days, will take a weekend holiday, but the mercury will start another nose dive tonight, the Memphis Weather Bureau predicted last night. A low temperature of 18 degrees is forecast for tomorrow morning. Since Wednesday morning the city has been subjected to a total of 6.1 inches of precipitation.

100 years ago — 1923

LITTLE ROCK – A proposal that the state of Arkansas defray one-fourth the cost of a proposed viaduct to extend from the St. Francis Levee in Crittenden County, Ark., to the Harahan Bridge across the Mississippi River at Memphis failed tonight to meet the approval of the committee on highways of the state House of Representatives. The committee, following hearings at a local hotel, announced that it had decided to recommend to the House that it “do not pass” a bill proposing an appropriation of $125,000 as the state’s share in building the viaduct.

125 years ago — 1898

Suburban groceries are now in a position

to take out the regular state, county and city licenses and open a side line in the saloon business. The annexation act extending the city limits gives this

right. Prior to the passage of the act, the county grocers could not sell whiskey within four miles of a church, school or chartered institution.

THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL FILES Feb.14, 2012: The Ramesses II statue, a 25-foot-tall, 5,000-pound fiberglass reproduction of the limestone original, was moved from The Pyramid, where it had been since 1991 to its new home on the University of Memphis campus. Ramesses first drew crowds in Memphis during the “Ramesses The Great” exhibit in 1987. City officials found the original statue in pieces in a ditch in Egypt. It was refurbished by Coca-cola and became the centerpiece of the exhibit. Several years later the city was given permission by the Egyptian government to reproduce the statue.