Flashback: Tracking NRV history

The Roanoke Times file 1987 “Blacksburg’s Fourth of July parade attracts plenty of spectators on Main Street.” The parade was July 4, 1987.

1987 (25 years ago)
-“Virginia Tech’s department of plant pathology, physiology and weed science will display its new $400,000 research laboratory during Agri-Tech ’87, July 9-10.”
-“A Virginia Tech report released Thursday cites 12 NCAA violations in the basketball program…”
“The recent discovery of a rabid fox and rabid raccoon has prompted the Radford Health Department to warn residents of the New River Valley Health District … to avoid contact with wildlife and stray cats and dogs.”
-“Virginia Tech finally has achieved the athletic notoriety it has wanted. The hard way. Howard Cosell ripped the Hokies in his national radio broadcast Friday.”
-“The vacant Corning Glass plant, which has been on the market since it closed in 1984, is no longer for sale. Corning officials have decided to keep their Montgomery County plant in case they want to reopen it sometime in the future…”

1962 (50 years ago)
-“Virginia Tech alone of the land grant colleges can claim the observance of the land grant legislation’s 100th birthday on the same day it welcomes a new president.”
-“County agent Joe Derting [CQ]has warned that property owners in Pulaski County may be subjected to heavy assessments if they do not comply with laws governing musk thistle.”
-“Monday was a day of homecoming more than the first day on a new job for Dr. T. Marshall Hahn.” Hahn was the new president of Virginia Tech.
-“C. V. Jackson, chairman of the New River Valley Air Commission, reported Thursday that the district airport engineer’s office in Washington, D. C., has granted final approval for the lighting contract at the airport here [Dublin].”

1937 (75 years ago)
-“Half a hundred summer students from Radford State Teachers’ college will view an exhibit of Norfolk and Western passenger and freight equipment at the passenger state at noon today.”
-“Ten members of the Giles county 4-H clubs… will broadcast over station WDBJ, from the V. P. I. studios, tomorrow at 12 o’clock.”
-“No celebration of the Fourth of July is planned in Christiansburg this year, but all stores and business houses will be closed all day July 5.”
-“Route 100 between Dublin and Pearisburg, which has been under construction for the past three years, is expected to be completed by August 1.”
-“The federal power commission has issued a public notice to the effect that Charles Kent Howe, Sr., of Radford, is seeking a preliminary permit to construct a dam on New River at Pepper’s Ferry to be approximately 200 feet high that will develop 6,500 horsepower.”
-“Many hundreds of vacationers visited Giles county yesterday despite the heavy rain which fell during the morning, followed by intermittent showers throughout the day.”
-“As a part of the ‘Fourth of July celebration here [Radford] Monday, two stacks of the old Virginia Iron, Coal and Coke company, which stood for 46 years, were felled by dynamite blasts.”

1912 (100 years ago)
-“Work on the new amusement hall [in Whitethorne] being erected by Mr. S. T. Harless is being rapidly pushed along toward completion.”
-“The heavy wind and hailstorm that visited the Price’s Fork section on Sunday did serious damage to all growing crops, particularly to corn [and] wheat.
-“The rendition of ‘the Mikado’ here [Pulaski] Saturday night by home talent, under the direction of Mr. Albert Baker, of Chicago, proved a great success.”
-“There will be auto races at Narrows tomorrow. The races will take place in a field of about twenty acres.”
-“Belmont defeated Pulaski in the first of a double header the Fourth of July, winning the morning game and then losing the afternoon game.”
-“About fifteen hundred people, one fourth of whom were from out of town, attended the Fourth of July picnic at the [Radford] fair grounds Thursday.”
-“The town of Floyd … was visited by a severe fire after last midnight which results in property losses aggregating between $10,000 and $12,000, with insurance amounting to $2,500.”

-Compiled by Roanoke Times librarian Belinda Harris

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