Monday, February 16, 2009
Looking Back: Feb. 16
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The Roanoke Times
File 1961 The Big Lick Post Office was built in 1846 by Postmaster Zacariah Robinson. The Big Lick Garden Club also met in the building for a number of years. The building was moved several times, the last time in 1959 when it moved from the east side of Williamson Road and Orange Avenue to the west side. The building was demolished in 1967 when grading started for the Roanoke Civic Center.
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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
1999 (10 years ago)
"The Virginia Tech women's basketball team has moved into a high-class neighborhood. Now, it wants to stay there. The Hokies (23-1 overall, 13-1 Atlantic 10) cracked the top 10 in the weekly Associated Press Top 25 poll for the first time in their history Monday."
"Rick Poff, a Christiansburg businessman, is the new national president of the Ruritans."
"The nearly dormant New Century Council is about to reinvent itself as a new, Blacksburg-based organization that leaders hope will tap into the technology emerging from Virginia Tech to foster economic growth in Western Virginia."
"When Bill Cosby takes the stage in the Salem Civic Center, he will do so alone, with no props and only a single chair. ... The legendary comedian, television star and best-selling author will be making what is believed to be his first appearance ever in the Roanoke Valley when he gives a one-night-only show at the Salem Civic Center June 11 at 8 p.m."
"Thanks, Elton, for coming to Roanoke. Signs and banners, two to eight fans wide, waved those words as Elton John took the stage to open his solo piano tour at the Civic Center Friday night."
1984 (25 years ago)
"A Christiansburg television evangelist is learning the hard way about rendering to Caesar -- the government has taken a Lincoln Continental and eight lake lots from his church and still wants more."
"Botetourt Cablevision, the unquestioned pacesetter among valley cable television companies in terms of programming, has added yet another prime service: The Arts & Entertainment Network."
"The biggest bank in Roanoke and Western Virginia celebrated its name change with a sign lighting ceremony and champagne. ... First National Exchange Bank became Dominion Bank."
1959 (50 years ago)
"From now on Roanoke's school children will have a say in what appears on their lunch plates."
"An upcoming housing and hygiene ordinance will assure Roanokers, white and Negro, the same treatment, a Citizens Protective Assn. audience of more than 200 persons heard last night."
"City Council members cast not one single nay vote yesterday 'for the first time in a coon's age,' according to a local lawyer."
"A record-breaking 41-point performance by Arthur Brown sparked the Addison High cagers to a 76-44 rout of Halifax County's Bethune High last night."
"The apartment hunter, not the landlord, rules today in Roanoke. Comfortable, clean, reasonable-priced furnished and unfurnished apartments are now standing empty, where last year they were scarcer than hen's teeth."
"The Roanoke Fire Department is compiling a record it believes may help save many lives ... Citizens with invalids in their homes are requested to let the fire department know about them."
"The Big Lick Post Office, one of the city's landmarks, has been moved. The white cottage that stood on the east side of Williamson Road is now on the west side of Williamson Road not far from its former site."
1934 (75 years ago)
"Better business (for Cupid and the merchants): Several Roanoke stores reported yesterday that they had sold every Valentine in stock."
"A raging, wind-driven fire swept 'The Barrens,' stock and dairy farm of P. C. Huff, in Roanoke county this morning ... it made practically a clean sweep of barns, dairy and sheds."
" 'Good weather and a fast track' was the prediction from the Athletic and Pastime headquarters for tonight's wrestling show when grunt and groan addicts will rally 'round the Roanoke Auditorium arena to see three matches between six exponents of the pachyderm industry."
"Mill Mountain yesterday was offered to the City of Roanoke at a price of $75,000."
Actor Bela Lugosi and his wife, Lillian, spent the night at the Ponce de Leon hotel.
"Two young men were drowned shortly after 5:15 o'clock yesterday afternoon as they broke through thin ice on Carvin's Cove reservoir."
"A recommendation that radio-equipped automobiles be purchased and broadcasting equipment installed at police headquarters so that information on crime activities may be flashed to patrol cars with dispatch the same as in larger cities ... is one of several suggestions ... that is contained in the annual report of Police Superintendent J. L. Manning."
"Shortly after noon today, as the climax of a ceremony which was witnessed by representatives of approximately 60 colleges and universities, Dr. Bessie Carter Randolph became the third president of Hollins College."
1909 (100 years ago)
"The first passenger train from Norfolk over the Virginian railway, arrived here at 9 o'clock last night -- right on the dot."
"Mr. F. W. Willis, a Roanoke machinist, is coming to the front as an inventer. Mr. Willis has a patent coal tipple, which is now being successfully operated. "
