Flashback: Tracking NRV history

“The late afternoon sun provided no relief from the cold wind that made snowdrifts on these new vans at Shelor Chevrolet in Christiansburg.” Roanoke Times file 1987

1987
(25 years ago)
- “A town recreation department report on the viability of minor league baseball here [Blacksburg] has been received much more enthusiastically in Cleveland than it has been right here in town.”
- “Not Shakespeare, the Blacksburg-based rock ‘n’ roll band, is one of five finalists in a nationwide new music contest …”
- “Since the snakes in a theft case weren’t introduced as evidence, it was strictly a case of hiss and tell Friday.”
- “Cassell Coliseum, home of Virginia Tech, never has been mistaken for Pauley Pavilion or the Dean Dome, but its inhabitants have established a reputation any program would envy: invincibility at home against state opponents. After Monday’s 70-65 loss to Virginia Commonwealth, that aura is in question.”
- “Riding the referendum wave, Shawsville Sen. Madison Marye is trying to get his famous ‘bottle bill’ through the assembly this year on the same surfboard as a state lottery.”

1962
(50 years ago)
- “Nearly 500 persons … were present Saturday afternoon for the dedication of the new Cambria Post Office building.”
- “Virginia Tech [basketball] is developing a knockout punch that would do justice to Floyd Patterson.”
- “A bill to permit the Giles County Board of Supervisors to appoint members of the county school board was introduced in the House of Delegates Wednesday by Del. Charles B. Andrews of Pearisburg.”
- “It seems only fitting that the first team which will sell out Virginia Tech’s new Coliseum is West Virginia.”
- “A new portable flood light-generator rig has been purchased for the Pulaski fire department.”
- “Pulaski Junior Chamber of Commerce members have begun their ‘operation survival’ program in the town of Pulaski with the opening of their fallout shelter for inspection by the public.”

1937
(75 years ago)
- “Traffic on the Norfolk & Western railway was threatened with a tie up last night by slides at the Pembroke tunnel and at Burton.”
- “Out of Virginia’s Southwest another invader whirls northward across the Potomac this week into Maryland … The Virginia Tech quintet plays the Navy Middies at Annapolis next Wednesday …”
- “Much interest was displayed by the students of Newport high school Wednesday when classes were dispensed with in order that they might listen to the inauguration of President Roosevelt.”
- “Continuous rain for 15 days, with a rainfall of seven inches, has made big inroads on all classes of business [in Floyd].”
- “A fire [in Pearisburg] last night destroyed the Col. Christian Snidow house, a landmark and probably one of the oldest two-story houses west of the Alleghany mountains.”

1912
(100 years ago)
- “On account of the epidemic of measles in this section [Newport], the school board yesterday closed the high school for an indefinite time.”
- “The city of Radford isn’t liable for damages as a result of blasting on private property near a public street, according to an opinion handed down by the supreme court of appeals yesterday …”
- “The ground was broken for the Normal School [in Radford] last week.”
- “The ladies of the Main Street Baptist church [in Christiansburg] have a nice lot of Van Camp’s canned goods on sale in the window of Mrs. Dunlap’s millinery store. These goods were donated by the manufacturer, and are being sold for the benefit of the church.”

-Compiled by Roanoke Times librarian Belinda Harris

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