Sept. 30

100 Years ago – 1924

Patrick-Henry Cold Storage was accepting apples, in barrel lots or more, for storage.

75 years ago – 1949

Judge Kennon C. Whittle heard arguments in the Martinsville Creamery tax case. The creamery claimed that a gross receipts assessment by the City was illegal under Virginia laws. The local company paid a gross receipts tax of $598 under protest. Virginia Dairy Products Association President H.M. Bush testified that the Martinsville Creamery litigation was a test case.

1960

Counting the change from the city’s parking meters was a hassle of a job that no one wanted to do. For a long time, it had been done by a clerk in the police department. However, when the latest budget was adopted, City Council decided that the fire department did not need a full-time clerk, so the police clerk was moved to spend half her day in the police department and the other half in the fire department. Counting that change took about 3 hours a week, so now with only half-days at the police department, she couldn’t spare the time. The task was moved to the office of City Treasurer W. Russell Shumate, but he said he didn’t have either the time or the space needed to do it. Councilman Thomas J. Burch stood up for Shumate, saying that a constitutional officer was not bound by Council’s wishes, and that his job description did not include counting parking meter change. Mayor J. Frank Wilson decided to look into the matter of counting the change.

50 years ago – 1974

In 1972 and 1973 before, people were expecting Sugartree Recreation Park to be built as a major attractions to bring thousands of tourists to the Martinsville area. It would have had rides, a theater, a model town and a miniature railroad, all operated by 1,500 employees. The 94-acre site was on U.S. 58 east of Axton. However, by this time 1974, there was nothing on that land except for a metal maintenance building and some stacks of lumber, all grown up in weeds. And as we know now, nothing ever came of it.

25 years ago – 1999

Henry County Administrator Sid Clower declared a state of emergency to handle problems from the privately owned Fairway Acres sewage treatment plant, the Westwood water system and the Rock Hill water system. The three systems made up Sanville Utilities Corp., which was owned by Richard Anthony. The action was done in cooperation with the Department of Environmental Quality, the Health Department and the State Corporation Commission. The Fairway Acres plant served 160 households; Westwood, 20; and Rock Hill, 15.

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