August 21
100 Years ago – 1924
The American Legion presented the show “Powder River” at the Hamilton Theatre for two days. “These pictures are the only Official films of the holocaust that shook civilization,” reads the announcement in the Aug. 12, 1924, Henry Bulletin. “They are the complete records of every division that saw actual action in France against the Germans. The cameramen are members of the Signal Corps and during the taking the fellows worked under conditions of terror. While the camera clicked the machine guns and rifle-fire played a mad staccato overhead, the Big Berthas bleched forth death and devastation on Flanders field as shrapnel sang a song of fate.
75 years ago – 1949
An 18-year-old escaped from confinement for the third time. Marshall Horsley of Sylan Avenue, southeast Martinsville, was serving a total of 15 years on burglary and escape charges in Henry county and Martinsville. He was on the loose from State Prison Camp 10 near Floyd, which he got out of by sawing off a leg chain while he was confined in a barracks. He also got out of the Henry County jail twice. Once, he and Ray De Mos overpowered a jailer and ran out the front door. They turned themselves back in six days later. The second time, he and Jessie Massey forced their door open with a coat hanger, used the hanger to pry a master lock and sawed a hole in the roof. From the rooftop, the climbed down the bars in front of the windows, then jumped from the jail porch to the ground.
1960
Villa Heights Recreation Center held a field day, including an open house for swimmers at its pool. To reach the pool, motorists were directed to turn left on Sunset Street at Villa Heights and follow the street to Beaver Creek Road. [Checking maps, we could not figure out where either of those roads were, nor where the recreation center could have been. Perhaps it was on the land where the Walmart shopping center or Lowe’s is now? Can you tell us? If so, please do.]
50 years ago – 1974
“Nobody knows how it came about or why, but several years ago just about every young fellow in Fieldale earned a nickname which sticks to this day,” said the Stroller column in the Bulletin. Examples were Mongolian Plaster, Rabbit Plaster, Mutt Lawson, Flop Stegall, Peso Pace, Sock Merriman, Jello Walker, Boshow Beheler, Wimp Hollandsworth, Bub Vaughn, Popeye Joyce, Popeye Via and Popeye Wilkerson. Those men were in their 30s and 40s at the time of that writing.
25 years ago - 1999
Southern Virginia Optical opened on Brookdale Street. Mike Wimmer was the licensed dispensing optician.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.