Other days

100 YEARS AGO May 8, 1921

■ Apparently it was not Charles W. Gray’s intention of defrauding the county of a $100 and costs fine when he escaped from the county farm Wednesday afternoon, as a letter received by Warden G. W. Cunningham yesterday afternoon indicates. The wording of the letter could not be obtained, but its meaning was as follows: “Would like to know if it would be allright for me to work, and as quick as I earn the fine, send it to you.” Warden Cunningham said last night he would answer the letter and inform Gray that it would.

50 YEARS AGO May 8, 1971

■ Federal Judge J. Smith Henley Friday set June 1 as the deadline for the Little Rock School Board to file new desegregation plans that conform to the “guidelines and teachings” of the latest rulings by the United States Supreme Court. He said that the plan for each district must “disestablish completely at all school levels the dual system of racially identifiable schools that has been operated by the district in years past.”

25 YEARS AGO May 8, 1996

■ A new road will connect Chenal Parkway to Arkansas 10, but some west Little Rock residents say it will be a path to a headache. The plan for Chenal Valley Municipal Property Owners Multipurpose Improvement District No. 4, approved Tuesday night by the city Board of Directors, includes a major north-south road on undeveloped land in west Little Rock. The road would connect Chenal Parkway on the south side with Taylor Loop Road on the north side. Taylor Loop Road leads into Arkansas 10. The road, which city officials have referred to as West Loop Road or Outer Loop Road, has been on the city’s master street plan since 1982.

10 YEARS AGO May 8, 2011

■ The White River is gradually receding in several flooded Arkansas towns, but the river won’t return to its banks for several weeks, primarily because the Mississippi River is reaching unprecedented levels, meteorologists said Saturday. Backwater from the Mississippi is causing the White and Arkansas rivers and other tributaries to drain very slowly, said Matthew Clay, a National Weather Service meteorologist in North Little Rock. “Things are a lot more under control than they were a week ago,” Clay said. “But the water will be around for a while.”