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Photo courtesy of Edward Graham

This photo, taken at 8 a.m. on Aug. 20, 1969, shows the Maury River at the northern end of Buena Vista when Hurricane Camille blew through.

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More history stories

• 1999 (10 years ago)
• Looking Back
• Looking back: Nov. 2, 2009
• Looking Back: Oct. 26, 2009
• Looking back: Oct. 19, 2009

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1999 (10 years ago)

• "A fire raged through a pile of jalopies at a Northwest Roanoke junkyard Wednesday afternoon, turning bright red cars into charred black skeletons and sending a plume of noxious smoke high above the city."

• "The water level at Roanoke's Carvins Cove reservoir rose for the first time in more than three months Wednesday, proving that there's not a cover over it. Roanokers have waited weeks for such confirmation."

• "The Art Museum of Western Virginia plans to level the Grand furniture store in downtown Roanoke, which soon will be donated for its use, and replace it with a dramatic new museum center. The art museum is working with an architect who has proposed a startling and colorful five-story granite complex amid the mostly brick facades of downtown."

• "An old-line Roanoke-based insurance company, Thomas Rutherfoord Inc., emerged this week as an early bird in electronic insurance sales."

1984 (25 years ago)

• "The first woman to serve on the Roanoke School Board died in Lancaster County Thursday. ... Mrs. [Margie] Ring was a city School Board member from 1948 to 1954."

• "Carolyn Kimbleton has been named the athletic director at Roanoke Catholic. ... Kimbleton, the girls' basketball coach, is believed to be the first woman athletic director at a Roanoke school."

• "Shucks, Roanoke ain't had an honest-to-goodness fair for years and now all of a sudden this weekend folks are gonna be tossing cow chips and calling hogs and winning ribbons for their prize punkins, the whole she-bang, right there at Victory Stadium."

1959 (50 years ago)

• "Roanoke Mills, a substantial manufacturer of clothing at 506 6th St., SW, produces enough in one week to supply one garment for each of the 140,000 persons in metropolitan Roanoke."

• "A scale model of a nuclear reactor will be exhibited at Virginia's mammoth industrial exposition at Victory Stadium in Roanoke Sept. 30 through Oct. 3."

• "Front end alignment of automobiles will become a faster and easier task for mechanics once Artie Nienke's patented offset ball joint hits the market. ... Nienke ... of Roanoke, has been employed by Antrim Motors ... for nine years."

• "Roanoke's Carnis Poindexter never tried his hand at tennis until three years ago. Today the 20-year-old Arkansas State junior reigns as National Intercollegiate singles champion of the American Tennis Assn." Poindexter was a graduate of Addison High School.

• "Roanoke, like the rest of the nation, is feeling the bite of the foreign car bug. Where once the tiny importations were scarce here there are now hundreds."

1934 (75 years ago)

• "The discoverer of a vaccine to prevent infantile paralysis, Dr. John A. Kolmer, of Temple University, will lecture at the ninth annual post graduate course at Gill Memorial hospital next April. ... He is a brother of Dr. George A. L. Kolmer, of Salem, Roanoke county coroner."

• "When it comes to freight locomotives, factory wildcat whistles, model 'T's,' street cars and delivery trucks, Roanoke, it is indicated in a noise survey report received today by the Chamber of Commerce, has plenty of decibels."

• "A coincidence in political life seldom if ever before observed in this region will occur on September 1 with the simultaneous retirement from office of the mayors of Roanoke City, and the towns of Salem and Vinton."

• "About 800 uninvited, and unwelcome visitors have taken possession of the front porch of a home in Southwest Roanoke and neither kind entreaties nor threats appear to be of any help in dislodging them. The guests are a swarm of honey bees."

1909 (100 years ago)

• "Roanoke persons holding one or more Lincoln pennies want to keep them indefinitely, if only for pocket pieces, for it is said that because of all the criticism directed against the new cent pieces it is expected a bill will be introduced at the next session of Congress directing their withdrawal from circulation."

• "The first regular passenger train over the new Catawba Valley Railroad, which was recently completed, left Salem Monday morning at 9:30 o'clock for Crusher, the other end of the line, eight miles distant."

• "Roanoke may expect a visit in a few days from the monster Mallet engine, which has just been received by the Virginian Railroad from the builders."