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The Roanoke Times | File 1964

This outdoor toilet was built behind 540 Marshall Ave. S.W. in the 1890s. It was converted to a toolshed sometime after 1906.

2000 (10 years ago)

• "The Virginia Room at Roanoke's Main Library is getting about 500 square feet of additional space. City workers have nearly finished erecting a new wall for the hallowed historical research center, just as Carol Tuckwiller, its longtime director, is about to retire."

• "Happy's Flea Market in Roanoke, where thousands spend Saturday afternoons, has been sold to new owners who promise more entertainment, new vendors and a cleaner look. "

•  "Last week's warm weather seemed a distant memory Thursday as temperatures dropped to obscenely cold levels Thursday night. And don't look for tropical temps again any time soon."

• "The state attorney general has ruled against granting the Friendship Manor Retirement Community for-profit status, to the relief of many residents."

1985 (25 years ago)

• "The wife of an airplane pilot wanted for questioning in an investigation of international drug smuggling to Virginia was jailed Thursday by a federal judge in Roanoke for refusing to tell a grand jury if her husband is dead or alive."

• "There's nothing much surprising in the latest Arbitron radio ratings report. Roanoke's K-92 just crunched everybody even worse than usual."

• "A federal judge in Roanoke says there is ample evidence to indicate that the former head of the Roanoke Pagans motorcycle gang was an active member of a gang conspiracy to distribute drugs along the East Coast." He was convicted of federal drug racketeering charges.

• "More than half the Roanoke Valley residents surveyed this past fall by Roanoke College's Center for Community Research favor consolidation of the four local governments."

• "A new 'star wars' weapon system apparently has found a home in the Salem courthouse. Salem court bailiffs this month began carrying Stun Guns."

• "A bitter blast of winter froze water pipes, stalled cars, extinguished electrical power, closed schools and may have contributed to at least two deaths in Western Virginia in the past 48 hours.

• "Is Roanoke ready for live comedy? Jim Butler thinks so. Butler, a 27-year-old bank executive, plans to open the Roanoke Comedy Club on Feb. 1."

1960 (50 years ago)

• "Outdoor toilets, a necessity of the past, are now a problem of the present. Keeper of the problem is the Roanoke City Health Department which estimates that those vestiges of the 19th century are slowly disappearing."

• "Name suggestions are being solicited for the new high school to be erected on Shrine Hill."

• "Influenza, hitting hard in Roanoke City, is apparently bypassing the county."

• "Professional wrestling ... comes to roost tonight. Promoter Pete Apostolou has converted the building formerly occupied by Roanoke Linen Service at Shenandoah Avenue and 11th street, NW, into a grunt and groan headquarters. "

• "Lemarco Dress Manufacturing Co. was entered into bankruptcy today."

• "Roanoke area ice skating enthusiasts were given good news today. For the first time since last winter, Huff's Pond on Bent Mountain was frozen solid enough for skating."

• "A general sales tax or a tobacco and booze tax? Roanokers questioned today prefer the latter. But some felt that any additional tax would be a burden."

• "A survey to see if Roanokers intend to keep up their fast 1959 consumer spending pace this year indicates that two in five persons plan to buy a 'major' item this year." A major item cost more than $150.

• "Roanoke has 102 new workers -- and their families -- because of the Norfolk and Western-Virginian Railway merger."

1935 (75 years ago)

• "Police guarded the entrances to the icy expanse of Wasena bridge early this morning to warn motorists to traverse the slick surface with care while buses crawled across."

• "The black-shirted steel-sinewed lads from the Central Y.M.C.A. sat on the pinnacle of the city league today."

• "The World-News is running for the first time this afternoon a church page, which will be a regular feature hereafter in Saturday afternoon's paper."

• "Of the thousands of Uncle Sam's letter carriers who daily serve nearly 125 million people, none can lay claim to the distinction held by Roy M. Rader, a carrier working out of the Roanoke postoffice. Mr. Rader ... claims the distinction of being the only one-arm letter carrier in the country."

• "Installation of new and modern refrigerating cases at the city market building soon is to be undertaken by the city of Roanoke."

• "A two-inch blanket of snow and sleet which fell here Saturday night, retarding traffic and keeping Roanokers indoors Sunday, had practically vanished this morning, but a veil of fog made driving conditions dangerous."

• "The first of 18 new air-conditioned coaches which will be operated by the Norfolk and Western Railway on its passenger trains was placed in service yesterday."

1910 (100 years ago)

• "Thomas Leftwich ... who has the habit of getting into the hands of the police every week or two, was tried for sleeping on a lot of hay that didn't belong to him. He was fined $5."

• "By an actual count 202 persons were registered at Roanoke hotels yesterday."

• "Mayor Cutchin yesterday completed the examination and signing of the recent ordinances and resolutions of council. He gave executive sanction, and, therefore, force of law to all but one."

• "Recently Messrs. W. R. Preddy, S. Sachs and Charles E. Jones organized a company known as the Pilot Manufacturing Company for the manufacture in Roanoke of horsehide and buckskin gloves and they report that they now have more orders than they can fill."

•  "Andrew Carnegie has presented to the First Christian Church of this city $1,000 for a new organ to be placed in the reconstructed edifice of the congregation at the corner of Church avenue and Fourth street, S.W."