Oct. 10
100 Years ago – 1924
Attractions at the Henry County Fair included: Hawaiian Theatre, a group of singers and dancers who make records for the Columbia Company, including two of them being married “according to the peculiar wedding ceremony of Honolula”; a Baby Show, “judged by a competent committee”, held in the grand stand on Thursday morning; a grand parade with decorated autos; School of Educated Ponies; ascension of a hot air balloon each day; and a show of bears performing tricks. Apparently it was all just good, clean fun, according to this part of the ad: “You Need Not Hesitate To take your wife, daughters or sweethearts into any show on the grounds. We permit no objectionable attractions. Nothing to offend the most exacting or sensitive. A corps of plain clothes detectives will be in the crowd at all times to protect you.”
75 years ago – 1949
A quarter million pounds of tobacco were sold on the Martinsville market on that day. Sales started at Farmer’s Warehouse at 9 a.m., then at 1 p.m. at Planter’s Warehouse. To date, 1,795,217 pounds of tobacco had been sold in Martinsville for the season, bringing in an average of $47.52 per pound.
1960
Lonnie Lee Pearson, 13, of Bassett died in Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C., from injuries from a fall off a boxcar. He was a fourth-grader at Campbell Court Elementary School in South Bassett. He and some friends had been playing on top of a Norfolk and Western railroad boxcar when he fell off. He was brought first to Martinsville General Hospital in a Collins Funeral ambulance before being transferred to Baptist Hospital.
Fire department officers from 100 miles around came to a demonstration by the City Fire Department, which showed how a Snorkel rescue ladder worked. The equipment was a rail-encircled platform lifted by hydraulics. It could carry up to 3,000 pounds up to 65 feet high. The demonstration was held at the old Central Grammar School on Cleveland Avenue. The demonstration included an assimilated rescue from the second and third floors. His family was parents Mr. and Mrs. Raleigh “Jack” Pearson, sister Virginia Wray Pearson and brother Howard Eugene Pearson.
50 years ago – 1974
Jim Katsifos, the owner of the Busy Bee Café, was under a deadline: He had until 10 p.m. to decide to sell his property to the City, or have it condemned. The Busy Bee restaurant was the only building on its block to be open – in fact, it did a robust business. However, the City planned to buy all but three lots within the area bounded by Bridge, Main and Church Streets and an alley running between Main and Church. He decided to sell it, for $22,500. Originally the City had offered him $19,000, but that wasn’t enough considering all his restaurant equipment. In fact, he had said it would cost him $30,000 to move. All the buildings on that block would be demolished. It now is a parking lot (between the post office and Walsh’s Chicken and the former courthouse and Bridge Street).
25 years ago - 1999
“What Would Jesus Do?” was the catchphrase of 1999, and it also was the name of a musical program put on under the direction of youth minister Tony Gray of Villa Heights Baptist Church, with teen members of that church, McCabe Memorial Baptist Church and Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.