In other local news, Rona McKechnie has been laid up with boils on his hands for two weeks; W.G. Rankin of Perryville passed through Danville on his way to Wayne County to buy cattle; L.G. Hubble is having his store and home painted; and Lee Rankin is having a concrete silo built by Phillips Bros. of Stanford.
Mary Walker has a curiosity being a “white” blackbird. It was caught by Mrs. Long in the yard of the Kentucky School for the Deaf and had a mate that is a “black” blackbird. Both birds are young and Mrs. Walker is going to try and raise the young curio.
75 years ago — 1937
Danville will shortly start work on building West Walnut Street from College Street to Maple Avenue, and West Lexington from Fifth to St. Mildred’s Court. West Lexington from St. Mildred’s Court to Maple Avenue will soon be black topped. The city street department has nearly completed the rebuilding and surfacing of Rosemont Avenue from Maple to the western city limits.
Workmen are busy quarrying rock at the municipal rock quarry on Lexington Road, and much of the metal is being stored on a city lot on North Seventh Street in readiness for new street construction. City manufactured concrete sewer pipe is also stored on the city lot preparatory to the building of a storm sewer on South Fourth Street to the city limits.
Miss Mary Ashby Cheek has been appointed president of Rockford College, of Rockford, Ill. to succeed Dr. Gordon Chalmers. Miss Cheek, who is a native of Danville, will assume her new duties this fall. She is the daughter of Mrs. Addison Cheek, of Danville, was graduated from Caldwell College in Danville in 1907, then entered Mt. Holyoke where she graduated in 1913. After spending several years at home she took her masters degree at Columbia University in New York City, and later studied at the international university in Geneva Switzerland.
The Boyle Fiscal Court has adopted a resolution fixing the school tax rate for the city of Danville at $1.15 per $100 valuation of city property, the same rate as in previous years. A poll tax of $1.50 was also fixed for the benefit of the school fund. The rate for the county school districts was set at 60 cents per $100 valuation and fixed a poll tax of $1 for the benefit of the county school funds.
50 years ago — 1962
Residents of the Danville area are reminded that frequent low-level training flights are being performed in this area by the C-119 “Flying Boxcars” of the 302nd Troop Carrier Wing (Reserve), Clinton County Air Force Base, Wilmington, Ohio.
Although the aircraft are visible on clear days, they fly at least three miles from the nearest heavily populated areas. Their minimum altitude is 500 feet during the day and 1,000 feet at night. They are flying about 180 miles an hour. The C-119s are easily recognizable by their twin tail booms and two engines.
Danville has experienced its first hoodlum gang-type of attack on a resident. It appears that three or four youths attacked a Centre College student. Warrants have been issued for two 17-year-old boys and two more have been questioned.
The trouble started when the victim was waiting in a car on St. Mildred’s Court when the group of youths came up and kicked the rear-view mirror off of his car. The group challenged the victim, who agreed to take the fight to Main Street and fight fair — one boy at a time. However, one of the youths held the victim while the rest of the gang jumped him.
25 years ago — 1987
Palm Beach Co., Danville’s oldest industrial plant, will be closed by the end of the year. The decision to close the 50-year-old plant on Stanford Avenue was purely economic and couldn’t be avoided.
The Danville plant, which has about 400 employees, has been producing an average of 3,200 men’s coats a week, but has the capacity to make 6,500 coats. The work at the Danville pant will be distributed between the Somerset and Knoxville plants.
A first grader’s prize-winning story about a bad Christmas has led to a $10,000 donation to Hustonville Elementary School from, Dr. Harold M. Childress, a renowned New York physician who attended the school years ago. Earlier this year, Childress sent a $50 check to Jeremy Maples after reading his story.
The student had written it on a computer in Hustonville during the Writing to Read program, and after the story drew unexpected notice from Dr. Childress, the class began corresponding with him.
Even though Dr. Childress moved away from Hustonville in 1925, he still considers it his hometown and over the years has contributed financially to the school and rewarded pupils whose accomplishments caught his eye.
The Garrard County Board of Education reassigned 19 teachers, including one who will have a combined class next year of three grades. The teacher, who had taught fifth and sixth grades at Buckeye Elementary School, will now be teaching fourth, fifth and sixth grades.
The unusual situation results primarily from the small enrollment at Buckeye, which has less than 100 students.
