June 10 through the century
100 Years ago – 1925
Millner’s Variety Stores on Walnut Street offered voiles in a variety of lovely patterns for 14 cents to 55 cents a yard and radium silk in several colors and pretty designs for $1.49 a yard. Six spools of thread cost 25 cents. Tub silk, meaning you could wash it easily in a tub, cost 98 cents a yard. “Radium silk” was the common name of a lightweight, luxurious silk that floated about the body. The element radium was discovered in 1898, and the word “radium” was used by 1903 to describe the way the silk glimmered in the light. There was no radium in the silk. The sudden downfall of the word “radium” as a positive adjective came in 1925, when the New York Times told the story of the deaths of five watchmakers from radiation poisoning by painting with radium – deaths following the grisly disintegration of their faces. The word “radium” rapidly fell out of favor.
A fire broke out in a storage shed adjacent to the brick building of the Virginia Mirror Company, located on the Norfolk and Western Railroad. It completely destroyed the storage house, several small outbuildings, a garage and a six-room frame cottage nearby. The residents of the cottage were able to get all their belongings out of it before it caught fire. A lot of crating also burned up. The fire department had a hard time putting out the fire due to low water pressure.
75 years ago – 1950
The 1950 census showed a population of 16,356 for Martinsville and 31,188 for Henry County. It was a growth of 62.2% for the city over the decade, and a county-level gain of 17.7%.
50 years ago – 1975
Janlen’s Steakhouse and Parlour in the Laurel Park Plaza sold strawberry pie at 39 cents a slice. On East Church Street, where the Burger King is now, Duffy’s Pizza Parlour had Family Nites from 5-9 p.m. Sunday, when “Mom or Dad” could eat a spaghetti meal for $2.30, and “one youngin” for free.
25 years ago – 2000
Thousands of people attended the Hot Fun in the Summertime XIX beach music festival in Patrick County.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.