100 years ago
Aug. 21, 1918
SEARCY -- Another large rattlesnake has been brought here by L. L. Walker, a merchant of Higginson. The reptile is four and one-half feet long, has 10 rattles, and was captured alive by Elmer Wheatley. It was caught about one mile from the place where one was killed a week ago, the first one measuring six and one-half feet, after it was stuffed, without the head. It had nineteen rattles. Mr. Wheatley offers the live snake for sale, saying that he will not kill it but will turn it loose if he can not find a buyer. He says he has the power to cure snake bites without the standard remedy, and says he would lose that power were he to kill the snake. This power, he says, was handed down to him by his ancestors.
50 years ago
Aug. 21, 1968
• There is a dearth of hospital beds in Little Rock and North Little Rock and two hospitals have called the shortage severe. John Gilbreath, administrator of Arkansas Baptist Medical Center, and Norman Roberts Jr., administrator of Memorial Hospital in North Little Rock, issued a joint statement Tuesday saying that some reservations at each hospital had to be canceled during the weekend of August 17 because there wasn't room. Gilbreath said admissions at Baptist had been reduced to a day-to-day quota based on how many patients were released that day. He said there was a waiting list of about 20 persons seeking entry into the hospital.
25 years ago
Aug. 21, 1993
• Robert McCathern, local counselor and crusader against youth violence, surrendered to police Friday on a misdemeanor sex charge involving a 15-year-old boy. McCathern has been put on administrative leave with pay from his job at New Futures for Little Rock Youth, a nonprofit organization that tries to combat rising teen-age violence, pregnancy and school dropout rates. The teen-ager told police he is enrolled in the New Futures program. In a sworn statement, the teen-ager says McCathern, 39, took him to lunch Aug. 8 and then to McCathern's house, where the minister performed oral sex on the boy.
10 years ago
Aug. 21, 2008
• Nine months ago, a jogger found human remains in Hot Springs National Park. Since then, authorities have learned they were the bones of Martha Teresa Lamas, a 37-year-old housekeeper with a history of drug use and prostitution. She was married once and has children somewhere. But authorities don't know much else about her. The FBI and the National Park Service on Wednesday released her identity and other information about Lamas, hoping to drum up leads to find who killed her. Someone reported Lamas missing a year ago today, but nothing at the time indicated foul play, Hot Springs detective Eric Stockwell said.
Metro on 08/21/2018