Feb. 13 through the years

100 Years ago – 1925

The Tech minstrel troupe, with a cast of blackfaces and musicians with “new Jazz that brings down the house” and “a new line of chatter and songs that would make a wooden man laugh,” held a show in Martinsville as part of its tour. The director was from Richmond.

75 years ago – 1950

The office of optometrist Dr. Irving G. Tavss was at 29 E. Church St., the Western Union Building. His phone number was 3240, and his office was open from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily.

1961

The Martinsville Pony League, led by president Ray Loman, held a meeting at the Community Recreation Center to plan out the next season. Teams were sponsored by industrial firms and civic groups.

50 years ago – 1975

Del. A.L. Philpott of Bassett was ranked the Virginia General Assembly’s more influential member in a survey of reporters covering the legislature full-time, conducted by the Free Lance-Star. Philpott, 55, had the 13th District which covered Martinsville and the counties of Pittsylvania, Patrick and Henry.

The Henry County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to make Henry County dog catcher L.E. Kidd stop selling stray dogs to a research laboratory in Dublin. Kidd had been keeping the dogs in a pen on his property and selling them for $5 each to Flow Research in Dublin as arranged by the previous board of supervisors. Part of the money went to the county and the remainder went to Kidd for operating the pen. The county did not have a dog pound.

25 years ago – 2000

Charles White’s Chevyland, Oldsmobile Cadillac Inc. in Martinsville donated four Chevrolet Cavaliers to the Henry County school system and another to Martinsville High School for use in driver’s ed training. Charles White said that he planned to donate another six cars by March and rotate the cars every six weeks.

— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.