July 27
100 Years ago – 1924
Ad: “SEED – SEED – Buy Your Seed Flour and Feed at Wholesale. We buy in car lots and save our customers the middle man’s profits. We specialize in Heavy, Staple and Fancy Groceries, Feed, Field and Garden Seed. Since 1890 our business has been run by the Golden Rule. J.W. Booker & Co., Phone 70”
75 years ago – 1949
Representatives of the Governor’s Highway Safety Committee held a meeting in the Circuit courtroom in Martinsville, to discuss road traffic safety. The meeting was presided over by Shelton Scales, president of the Martinsville Jaycees. During 1948, there were 149 reported accidents in the City, leaving two people dead and 54 injured. In the County, there were 247 accidents with 11 dead ad 128 injured, in 1948.
1960
Henry County construction worker Lloyd W. Hopkins, Route 1, Axton, survived a shock of 12,000 volts of electricity. He was working for Turner Brothers Construction, building a new office building for Bassett Industries in Bassett, when he leaned against a crane, which brushed its boom against a high-tension electric power line. He was knocked to the ground and revived after ambulance attendants from Collinsville Funeral Home administered oxygen on the ride to the hospital. The crane operator was not injured. Hopkins had burns to his shoulders and one wrist.
50 years ago – 1974
Two local drug stores had petitions to have Martinsville overturn the Blue Law, which restricted sales on Sundays. Super-X Drugs in the Martinsville Plaza had about 350 signatures, and Peoples Service Drug Store in Patrick Henry Mall had only a handful of signatures. In 1974 the General Assembly passed legislation to allow a municipality to exempt itself from the Blue Law by a referendum, but such a referendum only could be held during the even years. Sen. Adelard L. Brault, D-Fairfax, had held a survey of 1,300 Virginia voters, finding that only the Southwestern Virginia counties and the cities of Martinsville, Danville and South Boston favored keeping the Blue Law.
25 years ago - 1999
The unemployment rate for the MHC area was reported as double that of a year before – up to 8.3% for June 1999 as opposed to 3.8% in June 1998.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.