March 14

100 Years ago – 1925

 Patrick Henry Lodge No. 82 Knights of Pythias held a meeting to discuss the possibilities of building a castle hall on their lot located on the Public Square and West Main Street. The lot was donated to them by the late Bettie Hairston for the purpose of erecting a Pythian castle as a memorial to Watt Hairston.

75 years ago – 1950

Al’s Music Center at 6 Church St. had a 3-day “Removal Sale” – All makes of 10-inch 78 r.p.m. records, normally 79 cents. For 50 cents; and all albums half price.

50 years ago – 1975

The new truck escape ramp at Greasy Bend on U.S. 58 in Patrick County was credited with making that highway safer by preventing wrecks. From January 1969 to May 1971, that part of the road on Lovers Leap Mountain had 15 wrecks involving tractor-trailer rigs. In the fall of 1971, Joe A. Atkins of Woolwine suggested to Patrick County Administrator Edward M. Turner Jr. that a truck escape ramp should be put along the road just before the curves so that trucks coming down the mountain could pull off and cool down their brakes. He had seen such ramps in the Rocky Mountains and thought one would help here. It was done, to the cost of $14,000. The 400-foot ramp was built on a 20% grade that rises 80 feet above the road. It took 885 tons of crushed rock to make the 18-foot-wide ramp. It took 2 years of trying, plus the help of Del. Garry DeBruhl, for the Patrick County Board of Supervisors to get it to happen.

25 years ago - 2000

It took 75 people 4 hours to extinguish a 20-acre brush fire in Bassett.