Sales tax considered for jail
-Sequoyah County Times, Aug. 26,1999
From the files of Your Sequoyah County Times
25 Years Ago
(From the Aug. 26,1999, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —Sequoyah County residents may be asked to vote again on a half-cent sales tax for a new jail.
The consensus at a public meeting Monday with county commissioners was the county jail is too old to renovate, and the options are to build a new jail or buy or lease a building to remodel as a jail.
The county commissioners said Monday at their regular meeting that the county jail “will never meet state standards.”
The most recent rejection by the state fire marshal’s office was the reason county commissioners invited the public to a discussion about the 85- year-old jail.
—A new Cherokee Nation Food Distribution store is planned in Sallisaw once the property and utilities are secured.
The new food outlet stores planned by the Cherokee Nation are modeled after a store that opened last year in Jay. The stores allow food distribution participants to shop for the food they need in a grocery store setting. Participants gather their food from aisles and coolers and then proceed to a check-out area where workers assist them with boxing the food and completing paperwork.
50 Years Ago
(From the Aug. 22,1974, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —Webbers Falls lost its water Saturday night when a dredge, clearing sand off the bottom of the Arkansas River channel, broke the main pipeline.
The community of 600 has taken the incident in stride as they get their drinking water from a variety of sources. Several wells around town are being used for the first time in many years. A National Guard Unit out of Muskogee, activated almost immediately, has been trucking in tanks of water and distributing it to the people. Volunteers are taking water to those who can’t leave their home.
75 Years Ago
(From the Aug. 26,1949, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —Vian’s city dads moved this week to make their town more interesting as a trading center to Sequoyah countians and those living in the south end of Cherokee County when they opened their new restrooms for the comfort of their customers.
The building formerly occupied by the city jail was completely remodeled and modernized. Mayor Armstrong said today, “One of the biggest complaints heard against all towns by the people living in the rural areas is that there are no facilities for those who want to spend several hours in town shopping and attending to business. Vian’s Lions Club last year took care of the drinking water situation by putting in an electric drinking fountain, our city officials are now making available clean restrooms, we want the folks living out in the country to know that we want them to come to Vian.”
—M.L. Bland, assistant manager of the Sallisaw Hardware Store, announced today that the entries are getting larger in the catfish division of their fishing contest. J.J. Cox has entered a 43-pound willow catfish, Bland stated.
“But bass fishermen still have a very good chance to taking first prize. We haven’t received many entries in that division,” he added.
100 years ago
(From the Aug. 22,1924, issue of the Sequoyah County Democrat) —Charles Melton, Jess Melton and Henry Gann were arrested last week by James D. Quinn, state game warden and local officers, charged with dynamiting Little Sallisaw Creek for fish. The creek was dynamited on the night of July 18 and the state game warden and local authorities, assisted by the Isaac Walton club of this county, began to work on the case to bring the guilty ones before the bars of justice. According to a local officer of the Isaac Walton club the state has sufficient evidence on the men arrested to punish them.
—Miss Olive Lucas will leave here September 1 for Muldrow where she wi 1 take charge of the Southwestern Bell Telephone company office of that city. Miss Lucas has had several yearsexperience in the local Southwestern Bell office which will enable her to become a very efficient manager. For the past few months, she has been employed as bookkeeper for the Sallisaw Ice company.
