June 24 through time

100 Years ago – 1925

An article on the front page of the June 24 Henry Bulletin gives information on Roundabout Club: About 40 Roundabouters and their guests who were involved with building a big dam at the lake got together for “a delightful supper … in the clubhouse dining room.” Harvey Price was congratulated for coordinating the work. Before the supper, many “spent an hour splashing in the waters of the placid Smith, following with a few moments under the copious shower on the river bank, or inspecting the new dam high up the ravine.” The outdoors club was formed 3 or 4 years before by men enchanted by “the restful seclusion and attractiveness of this charming nook on the ‘Roundabout’ or ‘Horseshoe’ far property, nestling at the mouth of a small stream which came murmuring and gurgling and splashing and flashing (like it does at Lodore, you know) over the boulders of a steeply descending ravine with all the many-cadences music of leaping waters, and thence flowing with gentle murmurs through the shaded, grass grown level area which parallels the sweeping bend of the river at this point, with its eastern entrance nobly guarded by two towering sentinel rocks.” The men decided to buy a 10-acre tract of the farm for a club-site or campground. They organized under the corporate name Roundabout Inc. and built a clubhouse just west of the two big rocks at the entrance. The lodge, or camp, was ½ mile up the river from the bridge on Horseshoe farm and was a 3-mile drive from Martinsville, and was on a bend of the river about halfway between the Martinsville electric power dam and Koehler. It offered 4 miles of splendid boating. More recently, the club added another 150 acres of adjoining lands going up the river “and over the wooded hills towards the Horsepasture sand-clay roads. Away up above the club house the ravine broadens into a large basin covering some fifteen or twenty acres and it is this basin which has just been converted into a large lake by throwing a big earth dam across the ravine at the lower edge of the basin, the completion of which was celebrated Saturday evening.” [By our figuring, it seems to be at Smith River by Grassy Creek – off Clubhouse Road which is off Va. 58, and across the Smith River from the DuPont Road area. What’s your take on it?]

75 years ago – 1950

Special Ford Police automobiles equipped with Mercury motors arrived for Deputy Sheriffs O.B. Wells and David Miles. They were the third through sixth cars equipped with two-way radio units.

In Patrick County, Elder David Peter Jefferson, 81, married Mrs. Lillie Wade, 71. Both lived in Meadows of Dan and each had been married twice before.

50 years ago – 1975

Piedmont Trust Bank had begun construction on a $300,000 bank office for the Stanleytown/Bassett area. The 2,800-square-foot bank was of contemporary design with brick facing and cast window casements of white exposed aggregate-insulated bronze tinted glass, with five teller windows and three drive-in lanes. E.C. Jordan would be the managing officer. Irving M. Groves was the bank president; Conrad Knight designed the bank; Frith Construction was building it.

25 years ago – 2000

It was announced that the Goose Point area of Philpott Lake would be made into a campground starting in 2001. It would shift from a day-use park to an overnight park.

Del. Ward Armstrong held his ninth annual barbecue picnic. It was held at Patrick Henry Community College, and it raised $32,000. Del. Barnie Day was there, along with potential Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner and state Sen. Roscoe Reynolds.

— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.

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June 25 through the years

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June 23