Hospital to open as soon as equipment arrives

— Sequoyah County Times, July 1, 1949

25 Years Ago

—The Sequoyah County 911 board received a $50,000 grant from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to purchase equipment on June 21, Albert Marquez, 911 board chairman, announced at the county commissioners’ meeting Monday.

The board plans to purchase two VHF repeaters, 12 global 1600 global positioning units, an undertermined number of laptop computers and the IMS City Street Software system that displays area maps and locations on the computers, he said.

The board has 18 months to make its decisions and spend the grant money, Marquez said. It will solicit bids for the needed, he said.

50 Years Ago

—The Sallisaw Board of Education accepted the final plans for a new high school auditorium Monday night, paving the way for a bid letting session on July 8, and the beginning of a construction project that will hopefully be completed by the first of 1975.

A devasting fire in early March of this year completely destroyed the old WPA auditorium that had become a landmark in eastern Oklahoma.

The plans for the new structure call for the building to be a 139 ½ feet by 69 feet structure, complete with stage and lobby.

75 Years Ago

—Mrs. Zelda Atteberry, superintendent of the Sequoyah Memorial Hospital announced today that the only thing that is delaying the formal opening of the hospital is the arrival of equipment. She said, “every day we receive some additional equipment but it is impossible to give a definite date right now as we do not know just when it will all be here.”

According to Mrs. Atteberry, the opening date depends on the arrival and installation of the major equipment such as the X-ray, the sterilizers, operating table and the large lights for the operating room.

Workman are still busy putting the finishing touches on the building, she said. The lawn was mowed yesterday, and flowers and shrubs will be planted as soon as possible.

—According to State Senator Ray Fine, $869,000 is scheduled to be spent in Sequoyah County on highways within the next few months. Fine returned Saturday from Oklahoma City where he spent three days conferring with members of the Oklahoma State Highway Commission in the interest of better roads in Sequoyah and Adair counties.

Fine said that the other project for Sequoyah County is six miles of blacktop on U.S. 59 highway and will be of heavy base bituminous type paving. This project will be let in August and the engineer estimates that it will cost $240,000.

When the Sequoyah and Adair County projects are completed all of U.S. 59 highway from Sallisaw to Westville will be paved.

100 Years Ago

—The man who shot Sallie Scalf last week released under bond.

Charley Campbell brakeman on the Missouri-Pacific railroad was released Wednesday morning from the county jail under a fifteen hundred dollar cash bond, on charge of assault with attempt to kill.

Campbell, it is alleged, shot Sallie Scalf, a Greenwood, Arkansas, boy through the stomach last week. The shooting occurred near Roland when the brakemen ordered the boy from the train, and a scuffle followed and both men fell from the train and a shot was fired. Campbell, it is said, claims that the gun went off accidently. He was arrested near Wagoner and brought to this city where he was being held until physicians ascertained the condition of young Scalf. According to County Attorney Harry Pitchford, Scalf’s condition has improved and the attending physicians entertain hope of the speedy recovery of the wounded boy.

Scalf was enroute to the harvest fields when he was shot through the stomach, it is said.

—The Lawrence brothers who are wanted in connection with the shooting of Joe Morgan, an officer of Muskogee County near Dallas, Texas, last week were chased through this county late Tuesday evening.

The Lawrence brothers are 19 and 22 years old. They had been arrested as they attempted to cross the border into Mexico and were being brought back to Muskogee to face the charge of auto stealing, when one of the boys shot and instantly killed Officer Morgan and handcuffed Joe Barger, another officer, to a tree near the highway. The slayers have been at large since and the officers have been right on their heels, but so far have been unable to apprehend the youths.

Mont Grady, a special officer and the man who killed Ed Lockhart, the noted bank bandit, near Tulsa several months ago, and Joe Barger who was with Morgan at the time he was killed were among the posse to search this county Tuesday night and Wednesday for the Lawrence boys.

According to the officers the Lawrence boys are traveling in a high-power motor car and have with them Billie Miller, who was sentenced from this county to five years in the penitentiary for highway robbery, the Miller woman was a member of the gang which held up and relieved Walter Ashbrook of this city of his loose change and watch near the Garvin home, six miles east of Sallisaw, about a year ago. After she was sent to the penitentiary former governor Walton granted her a parole.