Flashback: Tracking NRV history

This February 1937 photo by George Davis shows the site of the proposed American Cellulose and Chemical Manufacturing Company rayon plant on the New River between Pearisburg and Narrows.

1987 (25 years ago)
-“The Board of the Virginia Tech Athletic Association unanimously approved the contract of head football coach Frank Beamer on Wednesday.”
-“Ceramic engines may indeed be what gets you from place to place in the future, as Energy Secretary John Herrington says, but a Virginia Tech professor who has studied ceramics for 25 years says there are still some problems to be ironed out.”
-“The Bluefield Orioles brought their home run bats with them across the mountain and used them to pound the Pulaski Braves.”
-“The Pulaski County Board of Supervisors approved a fiscal 1988 budget Monday that means higher telephone, gas and light bills for county residents by mid-September.”

1962 (50 years ago)
-“Newport exploded for six big runs in the first and five in the eighth plus a three-run outbreak in the fifth to stop Cambria, 14-2, in a Mountain View League tilt Saturday.”
-“Plans for construction of a lake and development of a recreational area on White Rock Branch, a feeder stream for Big Stony Creek… was discussed at a meeting held at the courthouse here [Pearisburg] Friday night.”
-“Virginia’s 9th Congressional District will have its first airport offering commercial air service when Piedmont Airlines begins its scheduled flights at the New River Valley Airport.”
-“Once the pride of Pulaski County’s aviation-minded citizens, Loving Airport today is an abandoned airstrip without a definite purpose.”

1937 (75 years ago)
-“Work on route 100 between Dublin and Pearisburg is expected to be completed by August 1 giving motorists in this section a short cut to Bluefield.”
-“Many years ago Ray Kinzie, star of the Christianburg Quarter hour on station WDBJ, took a little instruction in piano, and began to play and sing for his own amusement …Kinzie began his weekly series of programs of variety songs, under the sponsorship of a local grocery chain, in December, 1936, and now is heard each Wednesday at 12:15 p.m., backed by a group of Christiansburg firms…”
-“State highway 8, between here [Pearisburg] and Narrows, is being treated with a top coating of pre-mixed gravel and asphalt, of the non-skid type.”
-“The bass fishing season in this county [Giles] opens July 1, and County Clerk F. E. Snidow is being kept busy issuing new licenses as the old licenses expire June 30.”
-“Pulaski remained in the grip of the warmest period of the summer today with thermometers standing at 90 and very little breeze.”
-“Although no celebration of the day is planned, Pulaskians are making arrangements for the Fourth of July holiday which will extend from Saturday until Tuesday morning”
-“This section [Pearisburg] was visited by two torrential rains, accompanied by severe lightning, late yesterday afternoon.”

1912 (100 years ago)
-“Wheat cutting has commenced in this neighborhood [Whitethorne].”
“Since the advent of the Virginian Railway in this neighborhood [Whitethorne] ‘progress’ seems to be the watchword…”
-“The close of one week finds the student body which has matriculated for this the first session of the college of William and Mary Summer School classified and right down to work.”
-“The Music Club gave a petty lawn fete on Wednesday evening at the West End Hotel [in Radford].”
-“The Radford Presbyterian Aid Society will have a refreshment stand at the fair grounds the Fourth of July.”
-“Governor Tyler was in Pearisburg last week.”

-Compiled by Roanoke Times librarian Belinda Harris.

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