This week marks 50 years since Rolling Stones guitarists Ron Wood and Keith Richards were arrested in Fordyce, Arkansas, after a scenic detour on their drive to a Dallas concert. Local police stopped and ultimately detained the pair, impounded their Chevrolet Impala and briefly imperiled the band’s U.S. tour schedule. Contemporary reports recount that the incident escalated to the point of intervention by the British Embassy and a former Secret Service agent, who helped secure the musicians’ release. The episode quickly became part of rock-and-roll lore, underscoring the band’s turbulent 1970s. Arkansas news outlets and the Encyclopedia of Arkansas are revisiting the affair in anniversary features, spotlighting the small southern town’s unlikely brush with one of the world’s biggest rock groups.