Sept. 13 through the years
100 Years ago – 1925
At a conference of minister of the Protestant churches of the city, all of the ministers agreed to declare the last Sunday of each month as Dollar Sunday. Each member would be asked to bring a dollar at some point during the day. Considering that some members would like to donate more and some would not be able to afford $1, between the two ends an average of $1 per member should be received. It would be considered a Love Gift to be used in whatever manner seemed best for each church.
75 years ago – 1950
Fifty men from Martinsville reported to the draft board in Roanoke for physical examinations for suitability to fight in the Korean War.
Ten businessmen from Kinston, N.C., were in Martinsville on this day and staying overnight, to tour the DuPont nylon plant. It had been announced the week before that DuPont would build a new nylon plant near Kinston, so they were seeing what it was like.
A thrown sand bag saved the Martinsville water supply. The dam across Jones Creek at the filtration plant had been washed out three days before in a flood. City prison farm workers replaced the concrete dam. The water was high enough by 1 p.m. to permit resumption of pumping out of Jones Creek. By the morning, a 4-foot head of water was backed up by sand bags. With pumping back on at Jones Creek, the filtration plant was getting 200,000 gallons a day worth of raw water, and reservoirs were catching up on the water storage that had been lost over the past 2 days. While that all was getting fixed, the city had to rely entirely upon water from Beaver Creek.
50 years ago – 1975
Jim Lamkin, 94, and his crew were tearing down the old Gravely Homestead on Church Street. For 50 years, Lamkin had torn down buildings in Henry County and resold the salvage in his shop on Virginia 57 near Koehler.
25 years ago - 2000
The Bassett Kiwanis Club donated $500 to the Students Against Violence Everywhere program at Bassett High School. Patrice Newman was the SAVE program director, David Jeck was the BHS principal and Mike Adkins was with the Kiwanis Club.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.