_______________________
On the News Beat

Over the years, the student newspaper covered spot news on the campus including everything from the murder of a student who was walking home from campus in 1971 to the justified police shooting of a man who had entered the Tri-Delta sorority house armed with a shotgun in 1981 to the murder of a professor in Kimpel Hall and suicide of his assailant on the first day of classes in 2000.

The first spot news story in The University Weekly came in 1911, after a fire on Dickson Street took out most of the 400 block of Shulertown.

Monday morning about 1:30 o’clock, fire broke out in the Royal Cafe, the first frame building in the block, and immediately spread to the adjoining frame buildings. By the judicious use of dynamite and the excellent work of the Fire Department, the fire was finally brought under control. Royal Cafe, McAdams Drug Store, Ladd’s Barber Shop, Lisco’s Barber Shop, and the City Bakery were completely destroyed. The Frisco Drug Store, Fallin’s Confectionary, Bates & Reubel Grocery Co. were badly damaged by water.

Although the Fayetteville weeklies were able to bring the story out faster, The Weekly did a good job of reporting on a part of town that was then and remains a hangout for many university students.

The University Weekly. March 30, 1911.