February 9 through the years
100 Years ago – 1926
A group of 20 women from Martinsville were on an excursion for a couple of weeks in Florida, with Hollywood being their first destination.
75 years ago – 1951
Downtown stores were participating together in “Dollar Days” sales. Due to bad weather that interrupted some shopping, Dollar Days were extended over the weekend to the next Monday. John Gaines was the chairman of the Retail Merchants committee in charge of the event.
50 years ago – 1976
The Blue Ridge Farm Museum was under construction on a 15-acre tract near Ferrum College. It would include a central exhibition building and three farm villages based on actual local farms and representative of those built in 1800, 1850 and 1900 in the Franklin County area. They were being designed to be “living museums” with furnishings of that time period, plus livestock and gardens. Salaries for the five men building the village were provided by Comprehensive Employment and Training Act funds, and all materials and supplies were donated.
25 years ago – 2001
Twenty-one-year-old Christopher Noel Francisco died in his sleep of apparent natural causes. He had lived in Rivermont Heights and was a volunteer fireman. He worked for a racing souvenir company and was in Waynesville to pick up a racing souvenir truck to take to Charlotte, N.C., then to Daytona. He died in his sleep in a motel room there.
Piedmont Arts Executive Director Toy Cobbe showed attendees of a meeting of the MHC Chamber of Commerce a proposal to buy, decorate and position 50 sculpted dinosaurs around the area. With “Dinos on Parade,” a donor would pay $2,000 to sponsor a 4- by 8-foot fiberglass dinosaur, select its design from a book of prototypes developed by area artists and choose its location from a list. The artist would be paid $500 for each dinosaur. The dinosaurs would be put on display in October 2002. The project was inspired by “Cows on Parade” in Chicago.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.