Flashback: Tracking NRV history

The Roanoke Times file
The Blacksburg area saw more than 20 inches of snow during the winter of 1897. The road used to bring coal to Blacksburg from Coal Bank Hollow at the foot of Brush Mountain was closed because of snow drifts. Cadets at Virginia Tech helped clear the drifts so the coal-hauling wagons could get through to Blacksburg.

1987
(25 years ago)

-“Carroll Dale, a star offensive end at Virginia Tech from 1956-59 was among 11 former players formally inducted into the National Football Foundation’s College Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday night.”
-“Georgetown had the U. S. Olympic coach on its bench. But Virginia Tech had an Olympian effort Wednesday night at Hampton Coliseum.” Tech won 87-82.
-“Dressed in their finest holiday fashions, two former New River Valley residents are helping Gov. Gerald Baliles celebrate Christmas. The two are Christmas trees from Laurel Creek Nursery.”

1962
(50 years ago)

-“Giles County business leaders, in cooperation with the New River Valley Industrial Commission, have launched a survey to determine how many workers in the area would be available for prospective new industries.”
-“Shaky Virginia Tech survived at the foul line Saturday night and the Gobblers’ home winning streak is now 38 straight games.”
-“Virginia Tech now stands in solitary splendor as the only unbeaten team in Southern Conference basketball, but the Techmen are fast learning the perils of being everybody’s target No. 1.”
-“The top scholar at Virginia Tech and the ranking captain of the cadet corps at Virginia Military Institute were selected Wednesday as Virginia’s candidates for this year’s Rhodes Scholarships.”

1937
(75 years ago)

-“Dr. D. W. Peters, director of the division of instruction of the state department of education since 1931, was unanimously elected president of Radford State Teachers college today by the State Board of Education.”
-“Six returning letter men, plus several new men who hurled plenty of leather in freshman bouts a year ago, may give Virginia Tech a winning boxing team this winter.”
-“The W. P. A. sewing room here [Pearisburg] is engaged in making toys to be distributed on Christmas. Most of these articles, such as cats, squirrels, elephants, horses, etc., are made from discarded inner tubes.”
-“Merchants here [Floyd] report the Christmas trade, usually brisk by this time, is slack.”
-“Despite almost zero weather the Princeton band of 50 boys and girls entertained a large crowd of visitors here Friday evening…Many of the band instruments froze and had to be taken into the large steam heated show room of Narrows Motor company where they were thawed.”

1912
(100 years ago)

-“Hunting season opened here [Christiansburg] Thursday, but on account of the inclemency of the weather, no sporting was engaged in.”
-“Lewis A. Pick, of Rustburg, Va., right tickle on the varsity for a part of the season just ended, has been elected captain of the foot ball team of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute for 1913…”
-“Hon. H. B. Howe died this afternoon at his residence, Crescent Stock Farm, near here [Dublin]. He was one of the most widely known of Pulaski county’s citizens and his death will be greatly lamented.”
-“Signs everywhere betoken the approach of the Christmas season.”
-“The Thursday Club [of Pulaski] met this week with Mrs. Carl Mathews, at the manse. The bracing atmosphere without, and the cordial welcome of the hostess as she ushered her guests into her cherry, bright parlors, put everyone into an especially good humor to enjoy the afternoon.”
-“First term examinations are now in progress [at Virginia Tech] and will continue until Friday, the 20th, when the Christmas holidays begin.”

-Compiled by Roanoke Times librarian Belinda Harris

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