Here are the top headlines from May 14 editions of The Telegraph over the years:
The Telegraph did not publish that day, a Sunday.
+ Businesses in The Telegraph area were being hurt by rising gasoline prices. Van McConahey, co-owner of McConahey’s Flowers in Alton, said the business was having to absorb surcharges of 10% to 15% from greenhouses, fuel surcharges from delivery services and surcharges from shippers sending flowers from Ecuador. The statewide price in Illinois for a gallon of self-service, regular unleaded gas was $1.92, compared to $1.56 on the same date in 2000.
+ Hall of Fame sports writer Steve Porter published a feature about the 45th anniversary of the David Connors Sunday Night Mixed League, a bowling league for African-American keglers hosted by Riverboat Lanes in Alton. Connors, who died in 1971, founded the league in 1961 at the Alton Acme Bowl. Until then, Black bowlers weren’t welcomed in River Bend bowling establishments.
The Marquette Catholic High School baseball team snapped an 11-game winning streak by Alton High School’s Redbirds with a 5-4 Marquette victory at Moore Park. The win boosted the Explorers’ record to 17-11, while their crosstown rivals fell to 18-9.
The General Accounting Office agreed to investigate whether negligence by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for the river traffic jam at Alton Lock and Dam 26 in April 1976. The corps called the “barge-in†jam the worst in Mississippi River history, as it tied up more than 85 towboats and 850 barges. The fiasco was estimated to have cost industries dependent on river traffic millions of dollars.
Jersey County authorities were searching for Donald Dickerman of Fidelity, who had disappeared the week of April 8. Dickerman had been driving on that date when his vehicle collided with another near the Diamond Inn in Jerseyville. Dickerman was arrested by Illinois State Police after the crash and was released the next day. The World War II veteran suffered a head injury in the accident, and authorities speculated he may have developed amnesia.
The Chicago and Alton Railroad settled with Mr. R.J. Milford for the death of six of his cows that were struck by a fast mail train near the College Avenue crossing. According to the report, “Two of the cows had been rolled under the engine so that the meat and bones were rolled out of the hide, and there were nothing but hides left to show that there had been six instead of four cows destroyed.â€
