Monday, October 20, 2008
Looking back: Week of Oct. 20
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The Roanoke Times
File 1975 The Civilian Conservation Corps camp at Catawba housed German prisoners of war during World War II and later migrant workers. Herbert Ward purchased the site in 1975 and donated it to the Salem Baptist Children's Home to use as a camp.
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More history stories
- Looking back: Nov. 23
- Looking back: Nov. 16
- Looking Back
- Looking back: Nov. 2, 2009
- Looking Back: Oct. 26, 2009
Archive
1998 (10 years ago)
n "Tossed aside like hundreds of other starry-eyed Hollywood hopefuls, Roanoke couldn't make the cut. Producers of "The X-Files" had planned to use the city as the setting of an upcoming episode. ... Instead, the estimated 20 million viewers who watch FBI agents Scully and Mulder investigate unexplained phenomena every week will see a place called Kroner."
n Three Governor's School students entered the National Inventive Thinking Association contest. "The students won top honors in the household and food invention category with the creation of a device to alert deaf and hearing-impaired people to a fire."
n "There was nothing but blue skies for the folks who made their way to Ferrum College this weekend to sample some of the region's finest food, music and artistry. From wood carving and blacksmithing to coon-dogging and draft horse pulling, the 25th annual Blue Ridge Folklife Festival was a satisfying escape from the demanding world in which most of us dwell."
1983 (25 years ago)
n "The Downtown West Wellness and Fitness Center at 15 Church Ave. S. W. opened Tuesday."
n "Virginia Tech senior Mark Stickley has qualified for the U. S. Olympic trials by completing the Chicago Marathon in 2:18:29."
n "Radford Fire Department Building No. 1, built around 1890, was destroyed Wednesday night by a fire that Chief Calvin Whitt said was 'quite possibly set by an arsonist.' "
n "Wayne Sayer was a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student when he used his small savings to launch Blue Ridge Outdoors in a corner of another Blacksburg store. Just five years later, he opened his second outdoor shop a few weeks ago on the upper level of Roanoke's Tanglewood Mall."
n "Halloween will be celebrated on Halloween this year in the Roanoke Valley."
n "Daniel Clayton Kirby, the first test-tube baby born in the Roanoke Valley slept through his first news conference Friday."
1958 (50 years ago)
n "Thanks to a ham radio operator at Norfolk, a Roanoke woman talked with her Antarctica-based husband yesterday."
n "Those white spots many Roanokers saw before their eyes shortly after noon today weren't spots at all but snow."
n "Bridges, a civic auditorium and street repairs are listed as most needed municipal improvements by 51 Roanokers who have written to the City Planning Commission."
n "Trainmen call them gate boxes. Impatient motorists and pedestrians use other names. And when they are gone, another phase of the 'good old days' in American railroading will have ended. 'They' are the manned signal towers used by railroads at crossings to warn motorists and pedestrians of approaching trains."
n "The demand on Burrell Memorial Hospital -- one of but two Negro hospitals in all southwestern Virginia -- is large, and it increases all the time. Admitted as patients last year were 3,362 persons."
n "The Highlanders, kilted Scotch band at Radford College, Woman's Division of VPI, have been named one of the featured musical organizations in the annual Macy's Christmas parade in New York on Thanksgiving Day."
1933 (75 years ago)
n "Mr. & Mrs. M. H. Soyars, both 83 years of age ... took their first airplane ride yesterday afternoon in company with three grandsons."
n "A drive to rid Roanoke of every stray dog and to affix a license to the collar of every dog whose ownership can be determined, will be started here immediately."
n "Two powerful negro elevens, both former champions in the Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the nationwide conference of negro schools, do battle on Maher field ... tomorrow." The final score was a 6-6 tie between Hampton Institute and Bluefield Institute.
n "The Bishop of Havana by Pendleton Hogan ... This is the novel that has given Roanoke its first native-born Book-of-the Monther. To say the least about it is to praise it."
n "A series of dances, sponsored by the Junior League, will be presented in the renovated and remodeled dance hall atop Mill Mountain in the near future."
n "The Cadets of Virginia Military Institute marched to the tune of victory here this afternoon for the first time in 1933 as their gallant band of red-shirted gridmen turned back the University of Maryland in a great display of offensives, 19 to 13."
n "Feathers are likely to fly when South Carolina's Gamecocks and the Gobblers of Virginia Tech dig in their spurs at Blacksburg Saturday."
n "Log foundations laid for permanent buildings, everything was in readiness today to begin actual construction on the C. C. C. camp at Catawba."
n "The Roanoke public library reported recently that a thoughtful patron had left in one of the library books a banana peeling which had been used as a bookmark."
n "It was announced here today that a fire lookout tower is to be built at once on the highest point on Eagle Rock mountain overlooking the town and gorge."
1908 (100 years ago)
n "A number of autoists will appear before Judge Bryan in the police court this morning to answer for wreckless driving of the automobiles Sunday evening on Patterson and Campbell avenues. It is said the autoists were going at a 60-mile-an-hour gait."
n "Many of the leading citizens who are interested in the protection of game met last evening ... and perfected an organization to be known as the Roanoke Game Protective Association."
n "Galvani, the mental marvel that does things just a bit different from any other hypnotist, comes to the Academy of Music tonight and tomorrow night."
n "In the police court yesterday morning ... one lone sinner had forgotten his promise to drink no more. He was sorry, very sorry, that he had not heeded the advice to let corn liquor alone. $5 was the assessment against him."
n "The Virginia Techs again defeated the football team of Virginia Military Institute at the Fair Grounds yesterday afternoon. V.M.I. played a plucky game against a disadvantage of 15 pounds in weight."
n "Norwich had a bad mad dog scare one day this week."
