July 11
By Holly Kozelsky and Pat Pion
100 Years ago – 1924
Globman’s Department Store held a Dollar Sale July 11-12. Here’s what a dollar would buy you compared to what those items normally cost: ladies’ hats, up to $3; ladies’ night gowns, up to $1.50; 2 pairs of ladies’ silk hose; five pairs children’s mercerized sox (normally 29 cents each); 10 pairs ladies’ white lisle hose; two boys nainsock union suits (normally 69 cents); 8 yards of 40-inch domestic fabric; 4 yards curtain goods; 4 yards best grade voiles; 6 yards best grade dress ginghams; 12 yards apron ginghams; men’s regular $2 silk pongee shirts, collars attached; men’s 24-cent lisle hose all colors, 6 pairs
75 years ago – 1949
Henry County tobacco growers met at the courthouse to hear speakers talk on the government’s tobacco program. The speakers, from the Richmond headquarters of the Production and Marketing Administration, explained the acreage control plan for 1950 and talked about the tobacco referendum, which would be held on July 23.
1960
W.J. Fain of Bassett and his 4-year-old son Bobby were hunting guinea nests in the Dyer’s Store area when they came across a 42-inch rattlesnake with 11 rattles. It was a big one, but not the biggest that Mr. Fain had seen. He killed it and showed it around.
50 years ago – 1974
In 1974 Ralph C. Lester was the general chairman for the United Way Campaign in MHC, and H.W. Bartholomay, manager of the Martinsville Du Pont plant, was the general vice chairman.
25 years ago - 1999
The Martinsville Sheriff’s Office had begun fingerprinting with a computer (fingers were placed on the glass screen of a scanner) rather than the old system of pressing fingers into ink and then onto paper. The new system allowed print verifications to be done in just 15 minutes as opposed to the several days it took when they had to be mailed out. The $64,000 equipment was purchased with a grant from the Virginia State Compensation Board.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.