Need advice on a car problem...re front tire/wheel/????

I've got a 15 year old Escort wagon...it's old--old enough for flexible synthetic parts to have lost all the solvents that kept them young and supple and old enough for unpainted steel parts to be heavily rusted. You might say the car and I emulate one another...but that's not the issue...

Last week I had a steel belt on a front tire break. It was the first time I'd ever had a belt come apart and tear up a tire. But the tire was needing to be replaced, the separation in the belt was in a heavily worn part of the tire...I thought nothing of it.

This morning I went out to the car and the new tire, on same wheel, on the same front position was flat.

Now that's also a first for me. I've never had a 10 day old tire with maybe a couple hundred miles on it go flat. Is this more than coincidence?

The dealer broke down the wheel and tire, inspected everything, pronounced the tire free from punctures, but wasted, they decided the wheel was fine, and they replaced the tire for free. That was great

...but...

At my now advanced age, firsts are rare. Two firsts in under two weeks...on basically the same problem seems an improbable coincidence.

So I'm asking for some advice. What might have developed on my old car that would make both an old tire and new tire on the same location of the car fail? Something that might not be the tire or the wheel proper?

I gave this some thought and came up with a hung brake caliper, with the resulting drag possibly over-heating the wheel and transferring that heat to the tire, but the car doesn't pull when I accelerate, coast, or brake, and after a couple of miles driving in town--with the hub caps off--both front wheels were warm, but not so hot that it was uncomfortable for my hand.

Any ideas or suggestions?