New officers go into action, stop gambling at Moffett café

-Sequoyah County Times Jan. 14, 1949

From the files of Your Sequoyah County Times

25 Years Ago

(From the Jan. 14,1999, issue of the Sequoyah County Times)

—The recent cold winter weather has brought a growing number of bald eagles back to the area.

The U.S. Corps of Engineers eagle count Tuesday, between the Robert S. Kerr Lock and Dam and the Webbers Falls Lock and Dam on the Arkansas River, tallied 12 mature bald eagles and five immature eagles. Several large nests were also seen along the river.

“That’s about average for the past few years,” Todd Carr, U.S. Corps of Engineers Ranger, said of Tuesday’s count.

“We have counted more than 30 before,” he said.

50 Years Ago

(From the Jan. 10,1974, issue of the Sequoyah County Times)

—County school age youngsters are getting a touch of what students in Alaska and Scandinavian countries must experience when their winter days are nearly totally black for months on end.

Like those students, country students headed for classes Monday morning in the dark as the nation went on Daylight Savings Time.

Moving the clock ahead allows for an extra hour of fun after classes dismiss for the day, but in the morning, students are finding themselves standing on dark country roads and highways waiting for their buses.

—The City of Sallisaw Wednesday began using the new countywide landfill and City Manager Lloyd Haskins Tuesday night told city council members the old city dump will close for good on Feb. 18.

75 Years Ago

(From the Jan. 14,1949, issue of the Sequoyah County Times)

—Sequoyah County’s new law officers went into action this week by confiscating three slot machines at a Moffett cafe, closing up gambling devices at another Moffett club, and requesting that the chicken fights held here discontinue after this Saturday!

This information came from Mrs. Amelia Patterson Frye, county attorney, and EW Floyd, county sheriff, Wednesday afternoon.

“So far we have made no charges and no arrests in any of these cases,” Mrs. Frye said. “We just ask them to close and they seem to have cooperated.”

Mrs. Frye said that Wednesday morning the operators of the chicken fights agreed to close for good after the Saturday night fight which they had previously scheduled.

100 years ago

(From the Jan. 11,1924, issue of the Sequoyah County Democrat)

—If signs point rightly, Sequoyah County is to get closer attention and wid-er development tests during 1924 than ever before for oil and gas. Oil scouts from every big field in the mid-continent territory have visited the county within the past ninety days. Seldom a day passes that Sallisaw is not visited by someone seeking information from the county records or by personal inquiry. The recent rise in the price of crude and the apparent intention of all of the larger companies to resume active operations lead one to believe that something is doing and that this county will be thoroughly tested out within a few months time.

—C.C. Tuggle entered a plea of guilty before Judge McLaughlin Friday afternoon on charge of assault and battery and was fined five dollars and cost. Tuggle it is alleged administered a sever beating to C.F. McDole, principal at Harrison school, located several miles southwest of Sallisaw early last Friday morning.

According to Tuggle’s statement to the court Friday afternoon he charges the school teacher with whipping his daughter and using his knucks on her head. This the school teacher denies, stating that he only reprimanded the child for misbehavior during class hours.

It is alleged that Tuggle met the school teacher Friday morning, while he was enroute to his school and the fight resulted. The school teacher was badly beaten around the head and was injured in the leg. Tuggle stated to the court that the school teacher had to fight and recommended that he alone should be fined.

McDole did not come to Sallisaw until Friday afternoon to have his wounds dressed. He was in a pitiful condition. No other charges will be filed against Tuggle unless McDole files them with the county attorney, it is said.

—Bailey Dodson, age seventeen is held in the county jail for the killing of Ollie Merrill, age thirty-five and a well-known Hanson citizen, early Monday morning. Dodson admits the shooting of Merrill, according to the officers.

The shooting followed a dispute over the possession of a farm near Hanson, it is said. According to Dodson, when he started to move his father’s household goods into the house, which his father had rented, Merrill appeared on the scene and ordered him out. He failed to comply with Merrill’s wishes according to Dodson and Merrill began throwing his belongings out of the house. It was then the youth fired a shot gun killing Merrill almost instantly. The shots entered the dead man’s back just above the hips.

It is alleged that the elder Dodson and Merrill had been at outs over the possession of the place. Dodson claims he rented the farm from a local representative of a loan company for this year.

The slain man lived only a few hundred yards from the place where he was shot down and it is alleged that he cultivated part of the land last year over which the dispute arose.