100 years ago
April 19, 1922
• Although the Mississippi river stages at Arkansas City has exceeded all records, a force of 2,000 men from various parts of Arkansas and Louisiana, working throughout the day, held the levees intact, and J.W. Summerlin, president of the Tensas Basin Levee District, said over long distance telephone from Arkansas City last night that all weak places had been strengthened and that people of the vicinity were "feeling easy" again.
50 years ago
April 19, 1972
HARRISON -- A total of 56,960 acres has been pledged by 176 landowners along the Buffalo River to an effort to challenge the federal government's right to buy the land for the Buffalo River National Park. ... The landowners have pledged "to stand together and refuse to sell their land to the federal government until we have a chance to go through court and prove in part the law [of eminent domain] unconstitutional," said Herb Van Deeven, chairman of the Buffalo River Conservation.
25 years ago
April 19, 1997
• School and health officials in several counties in northern Arkansas dug through freezers and old invoices Friday to see if strawberries served recently could be traced to shipments reportedly contaminated with the hepatitis-A virus. ... An anxious inquiry began Thursday night when Missouri officials released a list of 20 Arkansas schools and businesses that had taken shipments from wholesale companies that may have distributed some of the suspect produce. Dr. Sandra Nichols, Health Department director, said an exhaustive search had revealed no questionable strawberries. ... The Arkansas schools and businesses were on the list because they received strawberries during the period of time -- last year and early this year -- in question, but Nichols said none of the shipment codes matched the 13 lots identified as contaminated with hepatitis A.
10 years ago
April 19, 2012
• Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Wednesday that it generated $231 million in revenue in its last fiscal year from recycling, saved $75 million by improving its truck fleet efficiency and by driving 28 million fewer miles, and squeezed out $1.1 million in savings via redesigned shoe boxes. Still, Charles Holley, executive vice president and chief financial officer, acknowledged that "sustainability didn't come naturally to us. We've had to work hard to integrate it into the business." Holley and other executives provided an update on the retailer's environmental initiatives. ... The result of those initiatives includes diverting more than 80 percent of "waste" away from landfills for other purposes; a "locally grown" program that now makes up about 10 percent of produce sales in its stores; and a global direct farm program in Central America, Mexico and India that has helped more than 10,000 farmers in those countries to use sustainable agricultural practices, the company says.