Day in history for December 21, 2005

1855 -- 150 years ago

The night express from Chicago to Rock Island ran off the track at Sheffield Tuesday morning through the carelessness of the switch tender, and did not arrive here until 3 p.m. No injury was done beyond the detention of the passengers and mails.

1880 -- 125 years ago

The Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that hereafter no excess of clerk hire will be allowed in any county office.

1905 -- 100 years ago

Tomorrow night the attraction at the Illinois Theater will be ''The Maid and the Mummy.''

1930 -- 75 years ago

Numerous modifications in plans for the locks and dam at the foot of the Rock Island rapids, some of them sweeping in proportion, were urged at a public hearing conducted by the Federal Board of Rivers and Harbors in the Rock Island County Court House this morning.

1955 -- 50 years ago

The Quad-City Marine Corps Reserve collected 13,941 toys as of this morning for its 1955 Toys for Tots campaign.

1980 -- 25 years ago

Ralph and Edith Watkins can remember when the whole area from Bettendorf ''on up'' the Mississippi River to Princeton was a succession of onion fields. Today Watkins, who has grown onions for 62 years, is one of only three onion growers left.

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