Flashback: Tracking NRV history

This postcard, postmarked 1926, shows the N&W Railroad tracks on the New River near Castle Rock, Va. | Photo courtesy of Belinda Harris

1987
(25 years ago)
- “It was in the cards that Richard W. Davis, the son and grandson of lawyers whose older brother is a judge, would become a lawyer. But it wasn’t necessarily in the cards that Davis… also would become a poker player of note, the only Davis ever to pick up a hand.”
- “As far as planning troop movements, World War II generals had nothing on Virginia Tech defensive coaches.”
- “Virginia Tech held a dedication ceremony Friday for its 120-acre Corporate Research Center, which speakers hailed as a crucible of entrepreneurship and launching pad for new industry.”
- “By popular demand, Floyd Elementary School students will be able to purchase breakfast at their school starting Oct. 1.”
- “Virginia Tech can’t run and it can’t hide. Coach Frank Beamer’s football team needs to do the former, and he refuses to do the latter.”

1962
(50 years ago)
- “Giles County Sheriff John E. Hopkins said Saturday that he ‘definitely believed someone had been shot’ in the bullet riddled car found near here [Glen Lyn] Friday night on an isolated bank of New River.”
- “Virginia Tech was all heart and – if you’ll pardon the expression – guts Saturday.”
- “Next week there will be two weekly newspapers operating here where last week there were none. The Blacksburg Messenger and The Blacksburg Sun will be distributed free to Blacksburg homes.”
- “Virginia Tech’s seismological station has begun functioning fulltime.”

1937
(75 years ago)
- “Friday afternoon local fans will get their first view of the Radford high school football eleven as the Bobcats go after the Blacksburg high school club on the local field.”
- “Duke university whipped Virginia Polytechnic Institute 25 to 0 tonight before 12,000 fans to open defense of its Southern Conference football championship.”
- “A group of Montgomery county citizens gathered at the courthouse here Monday afternoon to form an organization in the interest of securing a nine-month school term for this county.”
- “At a meeting of the Lions club… the club agreed to cooperate with the P. T. A. to care for needy children [in Pearisburg] with defective vision.”
- “Mr. and Mrs. N. H. Basham and family will move to Christiansburg this week for the winter months for school convenience for their daughters.”
- “The Pulaski airport radio station has gone on the air and is broadcasting on a 272-kilocycles wave length.”

1912
(100 years ago)
- “Many of our folks [from Long Shop] will attend the Roanoke fair.”
- “The Dixie concert to be given by the Daughters of the Confederacy [in Radford] has been postponed on account of Mrs. S. P. Kearsley, who is suffering from a sprained ankle.”
- “The Narrows High School began two weeks ago with an enrollment of 275. Of this number fifty are doing high school work.”
- “The board of trustees of the V. P. I. met yesterday… Routine business was transacted…”
- “The social circle of Radford is very much interested in the announcement of the engagement of Miss Laura Palmer Ingles, of ‘Ingleside,’ to Mr. David Cloyd Barton, of Pulaski.”
- “Senator Claude A. Swanson will speak at Pearisburg on Saturday, October 12th, at 1 o’clock p.m. and we hope to have with him the Hon. Richard E. Byrd, speaker of the house of delegates.”

-Compiled by Roanoke Times librarian Belinda Harris

Leave a Reply Cancel reply