Oct. 5

100 Years ago – 1924

The start of chilly mornings meant time for buying fuel for the winter. An ad for Lester Live Stock & Grain Co. starts out: “Number 15 – Get our Cash Price on Your Winter Coal. We sell for CASH ONLY. This saves our customers much money. PHONE your order today.” “15” was Lester’s phone number.

75 years ago – 1949

Jesse D. Burgess and Cana Richardson purchased from Curtis Spencer the Community store on Route 108, four miles north of the City.

Work started on the demolition of a service station on Fayette street. The lot had belonged to heirs of the T.H. Self estate. It was purchased by E.G. Ramsey, who would begin constructing a 40- by 65-foot building the following week, and also by George Nease, who along with Leonard S. Garrett planned to build a similar one-story building with basement right next door.

1960

Seventy-seven families were dependent upon the Henry County Emergency Relief over the past year: 46 starving, 23 sickly, 15 cold for lack of clothing and eight for lack of fuel, or combinations thereof.

50 years ago – 1974

Two straight nights of frost destroyed half a million dollars worth of tobacco still in the fields.

25 years ago - 1999

Carl deHart gave a discussion program at the Virgnia Museum of Natural History, sponsored by the Naturalist Club. The topic was Henry Wienek’s book “The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White.”

— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.