Late last week, a smallish abandoned church at the corner of Cricklin Avenue and Potts Lane in South Buxton burned to the ground. It had been in that particular spot for almost 103 years. Before that, it’s location had been…
Tag: RJ White
Friday Facts: Discount Pork Credit Rebate A.M.
:: Mayor Wilders’ recent initiative to “clean up” the city’s catalog of archaic, outdated, obtuse or redundant ordinances begins in earnest next Wednesday when he plans to unveil his self-authored C.O.M.B. (Consolidate Our Municipal Bylaws) Initiative. Among the ordinances targeted…
Snapshots: Wondrous Helio-Copter Float, 1940
May 1940– Winning float in the 1940 Memorial Day parade, Manufacturer’s Division. The Samson Aeronautical Manufacturing Company’s entry, featuring a scale model of a “Personal Helio-copter.” Local aerospace magnate Lemuel Samson (he of the tiny homes of Samson Heights) would…
Mayor Montgomery, Our Own Eliot Spitzer
The unfortunate situation with New York’s Governor Eliot Spitzer has reminded some of a similar controversy which rocked our city in the early 80s. Popular Republican state Representative Karl Montgomery was elected to the mayor’s office in 1980 and had…
Snapshots: The (Proposed) Exact Center of the City, 1912
June 1912– A crew of county and city surveyors poses in at lot at 870 S. Harner Street, which would have been the exact geographical center of the city after the proposed Annexation of 1913. After a bitter battle (both…
Snapshots: Demonstrating the Safety of Vaccine, 1956
Caption on the reverse of the photo: “March 13– Dr. Archibald Vinson, head of the City Health Department, administers a dosage of polio vaccine to his granddaughter, Becky Simmons, in her classroom at Calvin Coolidge Elementary School, as a demonstration…
Snapshots: The Great Flood of 1914
Intersection of Ludlow and Barnham Streets, in the city’s Northside section, during the Great Flood of 1914. The late-January flood was a result of an unseasonable warm spell dumping the melted remains of the Great Blizzard of 1914 (which itself…
Snapshots: President William Howard Taft (1911)
Caption on the reverse of the photo: “Tuesday- During festivities, President William Howard Taft laughs heartily with Mayor Woolsey at a joke making sport of the intelligence of those in the Arizona Territory.” During this May 1911 visit, there was…
Ex-Candidate Ron Paul Dis-invited
Former presidential candidate Ron Paul was scheduled to give a speech this Wednesday at Watson University for several student political science classes, but the event has been canceled. Watson Students for Poli-Sci (WSPS) had booked the Congressman (R-TX) to come…
Snapshots: Boy Scout, Future Senator (1941)
July 1941. Local Boy Scout Anderson Grimes in front of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., holding a copy of a WPA poster designed for the city’s landmark water conservation program. Shortly after this photo was taken, he was…