100 years ago
July 16, 1922
SEARCY -- Totally blind as the result of a dynamite explosion 10 years ago, Jim Thomas of Little Rock, working with Grady Garms, contractor, on the street improvement job at Searcy, is attracting considerable attention by the pluck and perseverance he shows in spite of his physical disability. Thomas is with the excavating gang, guiding himself from wagon to wagon by means of a stick, and handles his shovel with the dexterity of a man who has perfect vision. He is paid the same wages as his fellow workers and earns it. ... Mr. Garms carries Thomas with him on all his out-of-town jobs. He considers him one of his most reliable workmen.
50 years ago
July 16, 1972
• Federal Judge G. Thomas Eisele will inspect the Mississippi County Penal Farm Thursday to determine if it is being operated under constitutional standards. Conditions at the Penal Farm were challenged last fall in a class action suit filed on behalf of the Penal Farm inmates. ... The suit also challenges state statutes which permit persons convicted of misdemeanors to be forced to work without compensation and allows contracts under which persons convicted in one county are forced to work in another county.
25 years ago
July 16, 1997
• State health inspectors searched Tuesday for a radioactive tool that has been missing for as long as 18 months from a Little Rock ore-producing company. The tool, used to gauge radioactivity levels, was reported missing by the Porocel Corp., 10300 Arch Street Pike, at 3:17 p.m. Monday, a federal Nuclear Regulatory Agency report said. State inspectors were sent to the plant Tuesday to look for the tool and its small amount of cesium-137, a radioactive material. The tool, a small cylinder on a square base that weighs 56 pounds, does pose a health risk, but only if a person is exposed to it for a long time, an Arkansas Department of Health press release said. If a small shutter in the device is opened, it emits 100 millirems per hour -- radiation equal to five hospital X-rays over an hour. If the shutter is closed, the dose would be 10 millirems per hour, or less than one X-ray every 60 minutes. Federal regulations require that the tool to be inspected every three years for leaks. The missing tool was last inspected in 1994.
10 years ago
July 16, 2012
• Lakewood United Methodist Church gave away 100 box dinners under the Broadway Bridge on Thursday, something they've done once a month for the past 3½ years as participants in the Broadway Bridge Project. ... The Broadway Bridge Project is made up of 17 churches that provide free meals 19 days of the month under the Little Rock side of the Broadway Bridge. Volunteer Sue Winkley said not everyone who comes is homeless; often they're families who may have a home, but don't have stable access to food. ... Critics of the project have said that handing out food there encourages the homeless to stay and loiter. "I think there's always going to be hungry people in every city, and you are not going to resolve any problem by trying to run them off," Winkley said. "And that's not the Christian thing to do anyway."