Public meeting planned on jail

25 Years Ago

— Sequoyah County Times, Aug. 19, 1999

—Sequoyah County officials are planning a public meeting on the county’s jail problems.

Cleon Harrell, district 3 county commissioner, said Monday, “We are trying to set up a meeting with all the elected officials and the public to discuss the possibility of acquiring through leasing, buying or something, a new building for the jail. Frankly, right now, we don’t know what to do.”

Last fall the county received a $90,000 grant to be matched by $10,000 in county money, to renovate the county jail. However, the state fire marshal did not approve the architect’s plans for the remodeling project. The fire marshal wanted to add a second fire escape to the plans and a sprinkler system.

50 Years Ago

—In initial stages of the Highway 64 four-lane project from Roland to Fort Smith, employees of the John Cornell Construction Co. of Clinton are building new drainage culverts at points of existing ones on the eastbound lane. Only this time, the culverts are extended to make room for the new road, which will be the two eastbound lanes. A survey released recently noted that the five mile segment of two-lane Highway 64 from Roland to Fort Smith is by far the most traveled in the county.

—The Sequoyah County Historical Society reports a good response to the request for the family histories for the History of Sequoyah County which the society is compiling. For eligibility the family must have lived in Sequoyah County at least since around statehood (1907).

It is not necessary for a person to buy a book in order to have his family history included, a spokesman said.

75 Years Ago

—Residents of Sequoyah County will get the results of many years of work, when the Sequoyah Memorial Hospital opens its doors at 2:20 p.m. Sunday.

The open house is scheduled from 2:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Immediately after the open house is over, the hospital will be ready to accept patients. After Sunday’s exercises, visitors will be allowed only in halls and patients rooms.

The hospital was built at a cost of more than $100,000 and includes the most modern equipment available. It has a 31-bed capacity, including space for seven children. Approximately 50 additional beds could be installed in the storage room on the second floor in case of an emergency.

—Watie Davault said today that he had employed the firm of Bassham and Wheeler, Architects of Fort Smith, Ark., to draw plans for the complete modernization of his store in Marble City.

He said that he plans to put in a new front and to completely rearrange the interior of his store. R.V. Cardwell, draftsman and superintendent for Bassham and Wheeler has already made the preliminary survey of the store, and architectural work will proceed for estimates, Davault said.

Davault, in describing the changes to be made said the store will be one of the most modern places of business in the county when it is completed.

100 Years Ago

—W.A. Matthews of McDonald and Matthews left this week for Boston, Mass., where he had gone on cotton business concerning his firm. He will be met at Boston by Dan and Eddie O’Brien, who purchased cotton for the McDonald and Matthews firm last year. They will return to Sallisaw overland, making the trip through Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and then home. The O’Brien brothers have been in the east since the close of the cotton season.

With the best prospects for a bumper cotton crop in Sequoyah County since the war the local cotton buyers are preparing for a busy season. The O’Brien brothers will be found at their usual place paying top notch prices for cotton that is brought to Sallisaw.

Messrs. Matthews and O’Brien will reach Sallisaw by September the first according to their present plans.

—Passenger train service on the Missouri- Pacific was delayed several hours Monday night and Tuesday morning on account of a freight train wreck south of Gore, in this county.

Six freight cars left the track. A broken truck was given as cause of the derailment. No one was injured according to the reports. The accident happened Monday night at 9:30 o’clock.

Passenger trains 105 and 118 did not arrive in Sallisaw until eight o’clock Tuesday morning. The Rainbow Special going north was transferred to the Kansas City Southern tracks at this place, according to the reports.