Oct. 26
100 Years ago – 1924
Ad from the Turner Buick Company of Martinsville: Buick curtains open and close with the doors on all touring and roadster models. They are snug fitting and keep out wind and rain. Any child can operate them. Buick leads in Touring and Roadster comfort!
75 years ago – 1949
A new program called Industry in Action started: Eighteen Fieldale High School seniors worked in the Towel and Hosiery Mills at Fieldcrest Mills. In preparation for that, students from Fieldale, Axton and Bassett, Martinsville, Ridgeway and Spencer-Penn high schools took field trips at the factory in the days preceding. At the end of the week, those sections of the factory would have open houses for the public.
1960
What Sgt. A.T. Finney called the “biggest freak accident I ever investigated” and “one for Ripley – a real believe it or not” happened on South Memorial Boulevard. School bus driver Gary Joyce had just picked up 48 children from South Martinsville School. A 6-inch fan blade tore loose and ripped through the hood of the bus, cutting a 4-inch hole, and spun 35 feet into the air and cut a City power line. The power line tumbled down within reach of the bus. Fortunately, it was only a secondary cable carrying 120 voltes of feedback electricity. However, if the fan blade had gone a foot in either direction, it would have cut one of two primary cables carrying 2,400 volts in one cable, 4,160 in the other – both deadly amounts. Everyone was safe.
50 years ago – 1974
The Dyers Store Ruritan Club sold Brunswick stew and home-cooked food at the Dyers Store Community Building. Woodrow Eanes oversaw the stewpot.
25 years ago - 1999
Simone H. Redd, 39, was in her first month as president of Imperial Savings and Loan Association. She had been with the S&L for 17 years. The S&L was started in 1929 by William Spencer and his Sunday school class. He was its first president, followed by Dr. Harry P. Williams, William B. Muse and then Kelvin Perry. Located on Fayette Street, Imperial had $8.4 million in assets and was owned by depositors and borrowers. She also was involved with Rock Hill Baptist Church, where her husband, Carlton Redd, was the president. The FDIC closed Imperial in 2010, at a cost to the FCIC of $3.5 million, and turned over operations of Imperial to River Community Bank, N.A.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.