100 years ago
Nov. 29, 1921
HEBER SPRINGS -- A lighted match in the hands of B. L. Grimm, president of the Heber Oil and Gas Company, set fire to gas in the company's No. 1 well late Saturday afternoon. The gas burned several hours and did some damage to the derrick before the drilling crew could extinguish the flames. Mr. Grimm was standing on the derrick floor with a lighted match just as the bailer was coming out of the hole and the gas following the bailer quickly ignited. Mr. Grimm sustained a few minor burns.
50 years ago
Nov. 29, 1971
HOT SPRINGS -- Stewart Udall, former Secretary of the Interior, is listed among the featured speakers for the first Arkansas Environmental Congress, which begins Wednesday at Hot Springs. Among other things, the Congress will review the status of environmental education activities in the state and will initiate the statewide environmental education program recently funded by the Office of Education. More than 400 persons have registered for the two-day meeting.
25 years ago
Nov. 29, 1996
• The Arkansas State Police reported making their largest cocaine bust ever Wednesday evening, seizing 170 kilograms (374 pounds) of the drug from a Canadian truck driver on his way through the state. Police stopped the driver, of St. Joseph Du-Lac, Quebec, on Interstate 40 near Carlisle for following another vehicle too closely, state police said. When Inspector John Scarberough stopped the tractor-trailer, he noticed the scent of marijuana and asked for permission to search the vehicle. He found the cocaine in four cardboard boxes hidden beneath a tarp, police reported. The driver told authorities he had been headed to Montreal from Texas by way of New York. He is being held in the Lonoke County jail on $1 million bond. He faces arraignment on a charge of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.
10 years ago
Nov. 29, 2011
• The Central Arkansas Library System will ask Little Rock voters next spring to approve a bond reissue to raise $19 million for new projects, including a downtown auditorium and parking deck as well as property for a future branch out west. ... The new bond would also raise money for minor repairs and new furniture for branches that wasn't in the original proposal. Those repairs are in addition to expanding the Sidney McMath Library on John Barrow Road by 3,000 square feet, from 10,000 square feet to 13,000 square feet. ... If Little Rock voters approve reissuing the bonds, it would be the fourth time they've done so after an original bond issue in 1994 to construct new library buildings. The original bonds were supposed to expire in 2002. The original 1994 bonds issue was for $17 million, paid back by 2 mills Little Rock residents approved putting on their property-tax bills.