Other days

100 YEARS AGO Jan. 1, 1914

Arkansas got wet last year to go dry this year - for an indefinite period. This in scarcely more than a word tells the story of the passing of the year 1913, the beginning of the new year 1914, and - the inception of prohibition forever in some communities and for ten days in all. The year 1913 lapsed into unconsciousness just as the newly born 1914, amid the strangest and most varied environments possible, bounded enthusiastically into being. Never in Arkansas was a new year ended with so diversified a celebration and never before did the state welcome a new year under similar conditions.

50 YEARS AGO Jan. 1, 1964

CONWAY - Ten railroad workers were slightly injured today when three cars of a Missouri Pacific salvage train jumped the track 2 miles north of Conway. Two of the derailed cars overturned. All three had been recovered from a 43-car derailment which occurred at Blackwell, near Morrilton, last Thursday. The salvage train carried 21 cars, 13 of them recovered from the Blackwell derailment. None of the injured men required treatment.

25 YEARS AGO Jan. 1, 1989

Not only is today the first day of the new year, it’s also the first day mixed drinks can be bought on a Sunday in Arkansas. Thirty-three of 56 eligible restaurants and hotels in Little Rock, North Little Rock, Hot Springs and Wiederkehr Village at Altus (Franklin County) plan to sell mixed drinks today. Voters in those four municipalities approved Sunday liquor sales in the Nov. 8 general election. “We’re looking forward to it,” said Henry Burch, one of the “pilot-boat captains” at the Arkansas Riverboat Company Restaurant, 408 W. Riverfront Park, North Little Rock. Fourteen restaurants - citing a possible low turnout because of the holiday - will wait until Jan. 8 to begin selling mixed drinks.

10 YEARS AGO Jan. 1, 2004

City employees and their passengers in North Little Rock will have to snuff out their smokes, spit out their chew and buckle up their seat belts in 2004 on orders from Mayor Patrick Hays. Hays issued separate executive orders in late December to prohibit tobacco use of any kind by anyone in a city-owned vehicle and to require seat-belt use. Tobacco use has been prohibited in city buildings since a decree from Hays five years ago. Seat-belt use in Arkansas is mandated by state law but is a secondary offense.

Arkansas, Pages 12 on 01/01/2014

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