Looking back: Roanoke-area history Aug. 5

1988 (25 years ago)

• "A former Roanoke high school star [Bob Spessard] and a record-setting pro football player and coach are among the first class of athletes to be inducted into the Washington and Lee University Athletic Hall of Fame."
• "It was an occasionally spectacular display of a baseball team making the game more difficult than it should be. The Salem Buccaneers had to scramble in the later innings to overcome six errors and beat Prince William 6-5 Saturday."
• "Mayor Noel Taylor wants Roanoke to attract more sports events, festivals and conventions as part of a stronger and more diversified economic development program."
• "John Tortorella, who has led the Virginia Lancers to consecutive hockey titles in his first two seasons as a head coach, may be packing his bags soon."
• "Beginning today, the Food section usually will be published as part of Wednesday's Extra section, both morning and evening."

1963 (50 years ago)

• " ‘One hundred hot degrees,' declared a Roanoke radio station announcer Saturday afternoon."
• "Stonemasons from sunny, hot, dry Spain are building stone bridges this summer in the sunny, hot, dry Roanoke countryside." They were building bridges on the Blue Ridge Parkway
• "Burglars blowtorched their way into five homes in the Round Hill section of Roanoke during the dark hours of Saturday morning, then crept cat-like, looting bedrooms as families slept."
• "Young Jimmy Thacker of Roanoke lost a close race to Thomas Weaver of Elkhart, Ind. here Saturday in the second round of the 26th All-American Soap Box Derby."
• "The Norfolk & Western Railway's volume of coal shipments is better now than at any time during the past 80 years - thanks to the comeback of the soft coal industry this year."
• "Patrick Henry High School's football team has a new guiding Light. Howard E. Light... has been named head football coach."
• "The remains of a Roanoke man, who with six other crewmen died when their U. S. Army plane crashed 18 years ago, have been found in the wreckage in mountainous Netherlands, New Guinea."
• "Hactor Soto's booming bat brought home six runs Tuesday night as Salem whipped Middlesboro, 13-7, in a free-swinging Appalachian League game."
• "Two Roanokers were fined $100 each and given six-month jail terms Wednesday in Municipal Court as the result of a fight over a ham."
• "Roanoke's only Negro theater - the Virginia at 32 Center Ave., NW - has followed the example of four previously all-white film houses and is now open to integrated audiences. The American, Grandin, Jefferson and Lee theaters announced Wednesday they had opened their doors Tuesday to Negroes."

1938 (75 years ago)

• "Ten thousand, three hundred and seventy-four motorists paid five cents each to park in metered spaces in downtown Roanoke in less than two weeks, it was revealed yesterday."
• "A team composed of real policemen and members of the Times-World baseball team of 1925 will meet this afternoon at Maher field at 5 o'clock in a game of some skill, much competition and, perhaps, some groaning underpinnings."
• "Eighteen school teachers will be occupied through most of the month putting new paper covers on text books belonging to the city school system, having been given preference over others during the vacation period for the work."
• "The Roanoke real estate board went on record yesterday as opposing the construction of a multiple apartment house here."
• "The Roanoke Country club's first ping pong tournament proved a big success yesterday afternoon and last night and excitement was at a high pitch when the finals were played."
• "The Salem town council is awaiting the legal opinion of the town attorney for the disposition of the latest and most unusual problem to confront it - a crowing rooster."

1913 (100 years ago)

• "Owners of horse-drawn vehicles on the Hollins road say they are endangered almost daily by reckless motorists and it is likely drastic action will be taken to remedy the alleged trouble."
• "In one of the hardest fought games of the season today, abounding in spectacular fielding and timely long hits by both teams, the Tars took the second game of the series from the Tigers by the score of 4 to 3."
• "In a severe wind and rain storm here yesterday afternoon at 4 o'clock between twenty-five and thirty of the most costly monuments in Fairview cemetery were blown down and irreparably damaged."
• "According to the rain gauge of Capt. R. F. Bell, volunteer weather observer, 1.47 inches of rain fell in forty minutes of downpour Wednesday afternoon, when the downtown section was more or less flooded, and drains generally were inadequate to carry off the rush of water."
• "At the regular meeting of the board of aldermen last night the report of the public property committee recommending the plans of Fry & Chesterman, for the new city hall was adopted."
• "The first ‘dress rehearsal' of the police base ball team took place Friday afternoon at the Fair Grounds and the ‘coppers' attracted much attention in their new light uniforms."
• "The colored school property on First street [Vinton], which was recently purchased by the town, will be converted into a jail on the first floor and mayor's office on second floor."
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Weather Journal

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