Oct. 4
100 Years ago – 1924
Authorities were investigating troubling cases of people claiming to be law enforcement officers who had ordered cars on the Old Danville Road to be searched. The people in the car were young adults, mostly young ladies, and made to get out in the pouring rain. Miss Mary Spencer and William Berkley were in one of the cars, and Miss Barbara James and Mr. Stafford, of Martinsville, was in the other. They had left Martinsville about 9 p.m., after having had supper there. The kinfolk of the young ladies were so upset over what had happened that they (the kin) demanded an investigation. At this point of the investigation, enquiries were being made at the sheriff’s office to see if the men doing the hold-ups really were law enforcement officers, or imposters. The sheriff was asking around.
75 years ago – 1949
Martinsville’s six polio victims were said to be improving: Mrs. Ervin F. Russ; Bobby Shelton, 15; Mrs. James Mills; Jerry Mays Doss; Lora Labovsky; and Jean Owen. They were under the care of the Medical College of Virginia Hospital in Richmond. Recovered polio victims Elsie Minter, 21, and Ernest Hodge, 1, had just returned home.
Mayor Nick Prillaman asked operators of Martinsville’s four coal companies to served on the Citys; Emergency Fuel Commission with City Health Officer R.M. Wilson. A.L. Schilbe, H.V. Price Jr., J.E. Zentmeyer and D.E. Byrd accepted appointments. The area’s inventory of coal had dropped down to only 150 tons, which wasn’t enough to last, and there were no deliveries in sight. A 70-ton carload of coal had arrived the day before to supplement the dangerously low level. Residents were asked to use coal sparingly. Dealers already had been rationing coal, giving preference to old customers, and often selling only in 100-pound bags.
Congress agreed on an appropriation of $2.4 million for construction of the Philpott dam for the fiscal year. Meanwhile, work at the dam was progressing at a rate that would have the concrete poured by Christmas.
1960
The Martinsville tobacco market had one if its biggest sales days in history, when 393,194 pounds were sold at an average price of $61.55 per 100 pounds.
50 years ago – 1974
Flora Angela Weaver of Collinsville was a contestant in the Little Miss Martinsville Pageant at Martinsville High School. When her mother, Mrs. Howell Scott, told her that the pageant would be on TV, Flora, 4, pointed to the 12-inch TV and asked her mother how she would get in there,
25 years ago - 1999
At Grayson’s Barbershop, “Where We Make Less Look Better” at 321 E. Market St., the slogan was “Nobody Walks Til The Clippers Talk.”
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.