August 18 through the years
100 Years ago – 1925
Mrs. J. William Jones and Mrs. J.E. Richardson were the winners in a contest held by local merchants. The prize was a train trip to California and back. The prize only could be won by two women.
75 years ago – 1950
Two children were overcome by gasoline fumes inside a tunnel off Overland Drive on Southside. George Junior Collins, 7, of Summitt Street, was dragged out by five of his friends, and Curtis Durham, 13, of Union Street, was brought to the mouth of the tunnel by rescuers. The five boys who saved Collins were Ronald Pritchard, 13, of Askin Street; Leonard Yeatts, 15, of Union Street; James Thomas Dobbins, 12, and his brother, Geroge Lee Dobbins, of Oak Street. An ambulance by Smith Funeral Home arrived at the scene to help. The tunnel had been dug through a hillside several years before for a sewer line crossing Thomas G. Burch’s property, off an isolated road two blocks west of South Askin Street. The boys had gone into it the day before with a homemade lantern made by a soft drink bottle filled with kerosene and with a cloth wick. One of the boys noticed that the bottle was cracking and warned the others that it might explode. They left and returned to the cave the next day. A 5-gallon can of gasoline had been in the cave, but the boys told investigators that they did not know anything about it. The two boys were overcome with gas fumes. The Public Works Department was ordered to use a bulldozer to fill the tunnel.
Twenty-one men from Martinsville were sent by the draft board to Roanoke for physical examinations to see if they would qualify for service in the Korean War.
William Wingfield’s Guernsey yearly won grand champion of the Henry County Junior Dairy Show at Kenmar Farm. He won a silver loving cup donated by Fred Stanley. Eugene Adams’ Guernsey cow was the reserve champion, winning $15; and Earl Frith’s Guernsey yearling was the second reserve champion, winning $10. Winners of other prizes were David Eanes, Peggy Ramsey, Earl Frith, Hesse Koger, Douglas Morris. Charles Wingfield and Eugene Adams.
50 years ago – 1975
Clearview Baptist Church set up the “Gail P. Fulcher Fund” to help with medical expenses for Gail Fulcher, 16, of Route 6, Martinsville. The girl was left quadriplegic after a wreck on May 4, and in 3 ½ months her medical bills had risen to $20,000. She was a sophomore at Laurel Park High School, returning home from a friend’s house after the prom when the wreck happened. She already had undergone extensive back surgery before the accident and would be under medical care for the rest of her life.
25 years ago - 2000
Martinsville-Henry County E-911 had a new $200,000 computer system which allowed dispatchers to send police, fire and rescue calls by simply touching a space on a computer screen. The department purchased six new computers and their 21-inch screens through Sprint. Wes Ashley was the director of the E-911 Communications Center, and J.R. Powell was the operations director at the center.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.