100 years ago
Jan. 9, 1919
FORT SMITH -- Guy Hartman, who, with others, furnished one of the sensations of the day when it was found that for years they had operated a large distillery in Fort Smith without the government knowing it, has been promoted to captain of the Sixth Infantry in France in recognition of gallantry in action against the Germans. Hartman, against whom a half dozen indictments are still pending in the United States District Court here, has been recommended also for the medal of honor, the highest military award of America, and for the Distinguished Service cross. Hartman, whose companions in the moonshine enterprise that cost the government, it is said, a half million dollars in revenue, has also been mentioned four times in army orders for his heroic work.
50 years ago
Jan. 9, 1969
• Former Governor Orval E. Faubus, forswearing all participation in politics, was named Wednesday as the new president of the corporation that owns Dogpatch USA near Harrison. The amusement park, which opened last May, is patterned after Al Capp's famed comic strip "L'il Abner," and is situated in Ozark Mountains that are comparable to the strip's locale. Faubus said he would move to the Harrison area and would be at the park daily, assisting with its public relations, serving in a managerial capacity, overseeing the employes who run it and insuring that proper courtesy was shown to visitors.
25 years ago
Jan. 9, 1994
CORNING -- A defense attorney for one of three defendants in a triple-murder case says the police lied to get a confession from his client. Dan Stidham, an attorney for Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., said that after police administered a polygraph test to his client, they told him he flunked and "that they knew he was lying because his brain was telling them so." Stidham said police pressured the teen-ager to say that he was present when 8-year-olds Steve Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers were killed last May and that he saw Charles Jason Baldwin and Damien Wayne Echols kill the boys. Misskelley has the intelligence of a 5- to 8-year-old child and the police "were preying on a retarded kid," he said.
10 years ago
Jan. 9, 2009
• The Marianna man accused of killing TV news anchor Anne Pressly was charged in Pulaski County Circuit Court with capital murder and rape Thursday, but the charges reveal little new information about the case, and his defense attorneys have persuaded a judge to continue a gag order for at least another week. The charges make Curtis Lavelle Vance eligible for the death penalty, and Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley, citing the gag order, declined to comment on whether prosecutors will seek execution. "I can't say anything about it," Jegley said.
Metro on 01/09/2019