June 23
By Holly Kozelsky and Pat Pion
100 Years ago – 1924
Construction had begun on First National Bank and was expected to be finished in six months. “The new building is to be located on the property adjoining the west side of its present banking house fronting the Public Square,” the Henry Bulletin reported on June 20, 1924. The plans were drawn by E.R. James of Danville, and construction by E.M. Herringdon of Roanoke. “The architecture is Italianate Renaissance and the front will be constructed of Indiana limestone with a handsome arched entrance and the sidewalls of brick. It will be only one story in height with an interior pitch of twenty-seven feet, with a mezzanine floor, on which the directors office will be located, supported by large columns of imported Caen stone. Both the floors and wainscotting will be imported marble. The building is designed for its use only as a banking house. The interior arrangement includes, besides the banking workroom, and directors room a spacious lobby, president’s and cashier’s offices, a ladies rest room, consultation rooms, and private booths for customers affording privacy in going over their papers, clipping coupons, etc. lavatories and other facilities of a city banking house. The two big vaults will be of reinforced concrete with drill proof doors and the most modern burglar proof construction affording the greatest possible protection to the funds and records of the bank.”
75 years ago – 1949
Employees of Fieldcrest’s two mills in Fieldale received a total of between $65,000 and $70,000 in vacation pay, in addition to their regular checks. A total of 525 employees would receive two weeks’ pay, and 450 would get one week’s pay. Fieldcrest Mills was one of the first textile companies to give paid vacations. The vacation pay plan was adopted in 1940 but for several years during the war, the vacation pay was given as a bonus in addition to full-time earnings, because the mills were running continuously through the summer. The customary vacation period for the mills was June 27 through July 10, when the mills would shut down.
Nine-year-old Genie Marie Spencer gave an accordion recital over radio station WMVA.
Citywide insect fogging continued during the night, with June 23, 1949, seeing the northern end of Martinsville and the Mulberry Road section sprayed with Chloradine against flies and mosquitoes.
1960
More than two dozen administrators and faculty representatives from leading colleges and universities throughout the nation toured the Martinsville Du Pont plant for a study of the Du Pont industry and its relationship to the community. They also took a chartered-bus tour of the area.
J.T. Weaver of Figsboro Road asked anyone who could help to look for a whitefaced cow that had wandered away from his pasture. He had just bought the lost cow a day earlier in Patrick Springs.
50 years ago – 1974
Bassett Furniture Industries employee Harry Edgar Smith, 58, of Patrick Springs was critically injured after being hit by a train in Bassett. The slow-moving train (18 mph) knocked him 12 feet, leaving him with two broken legs, a dislocated wrist and severe injuries to his face and head.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.