20 Years Ago
Week of August 5, 2004
Bread Baking Contest
To Stage at TMF
“In the Mountain…Lies a Treasure” is the 2004 Treasure Mountain Festival theme. As always, there will be lots of fun for everyone to enjoy. One addition to this year’s festival activities will be a bread baking contest held in the Town Parking Lot on Saturday, September 18 at 9:30 a.m.
Anyone interested in entering the contest needs to send a postcard entry to the TMF at PO Box 336, Franklin, WV 26807, marked Bread Contest, with their name, address & telephone number no later than August 25. All contestants are asked to make the bread homemade by hand (no bread machines, please) and bring one loaf of bread to be judged.
For this first year there will be judging of white bread only.
Red Star Yeast Company will provide the yeast for the bread contestants so please try to get your entry back by the date above in order to get your yeast for the contest. Red Star will also be providing prizes. Please come out and join in the fun at this year’s festival.
40 Years Ago
Week of August 9, 1984
Potomac Ranger District Provides Internships
By: Mark Colaw
During the past eight weeks, I have been doing an internship with the USDA Forest Service on the Potomac Ranger District in Petersburg. The internship is a major element for the completion of a Bachelor of Science degree in Recreation and Park Management at West Virginia University. It is to occur following the completion of the junior year and must be compatible with the student’s chosen option within the major. The fieldwork experience must be a full time affiliation of not less than eight weeks duration and not less than the minimum time specified by the providing agency. An internship provides the recreation and park management student an opportunity for direct learning fieldwork experience. These experiences should bring the student into contact with all facets of the work of the organization providing the internship.
The Potomac Ranger District has been especially cooperative and extensive in providing such fieldwork experiences. During my internship, I have been exposed to many aspects of the forest service, such as, the management of timber, recreation, wildlife, rangeland, and visitor’s information service operation. I have also participated in such activities as safety and staff meetings and special training sessions.
The staff on the Potomac Ranger District have been very cooperative and attentive toward providing me with the best possible internship experience. They have also been open and informative on guidelines and policies that will regulate future forest service practices. An overall evaluation would indicate that my internship with the forest service has provided me with valuable information and knowledge that will be helpful for the future of my career. The Potomac Ranger District will continue to provide such opportunities for university students seeking careers in conservation. It has been an enjoyable as well as educational experience for me, and I’m sure it will be for future internship students.
Youth Find Rewarding Summer Work
On National Forest Land
By: Raymond Blum
This summer, the Potomac Ranger District has a total of five summer employees to assist with the operation of the facilities in the Dolly Sods Wilderness and National Forest Area. Four high school students were hired under the Youth Conservation Corps program for eight weeks. In addition to these fine young people, we also have a West Virginia University student performing his internship program with us. I would like to share with you who these people are and a few of the tasks they have performed so far this summer.
Mike Alt is from Petersburg High School and works in our recreation program. Mike helps cut and trim grass, clean camp and picnic sites, paints tables and signs and performs other maintenance jobs in the Smoke Hole and Dolly Sods areas.
Angela Mauzy is also from Petersburg High School and works as a receptionist and secretary in the district office outside of Petersburg. She does an excellent job of helping to assist visitors and taking care of the daily paperwork.
Both Anna Kisamore and Lisa Thompson are from Circleville High School and work at the Seneca Rocks Visitor Center. At the center, they work as receptionists and operate the audio-visual equipment. In addition to this, they have helped perform trail maintenance at Seneca Rocks and the Gatewood Management Trail near Spruce Knob.
Mark Colaw was raised in Cherry Grove and has just finished his third year at West Virginia University. Under his internship program, Mark will work until mid-August in nearly all areas of forest service management such as timber, range, wilderness, recreation and visitor center operations.
Just telling you some of the jobs these people have done doesn’t nearly tell the entire story. It is the personality and soul of these folks that make them so special. All are outgoing, energetic and very interested in helping other people. They have helped to motivate me and rekindle my enthusiasm for my job. It is with my heart that I say to these people, “thank you for touching our lives and for a job well done.”
50 Years Ago
Week of August 1, 1974
EASY EXTRA DOLLARS FOR FARMERS
Renting Garden Plots
To City Folks
You want to get paid extremely well for doing a little that helps people a lot? Rent garden plots to city folk!
If your farm is near a city or college town, people will say it’s a good deal to pay you $10 or more for the privilege of raising vegetables in a 25’x30’ plot. At 40 plots per acre, you get $400 or more an acre in advance and the renters do most of your work for you. And you still own the land! All you do is plow, stake out the plots, and cultivate two or three times. They plant, weed, and harvest. You or your kids can make extra money selling seeds, tools, plants, water, pop, gum, etc.
People like gardening. As food gets scarcer and prices higher, demand for family-size garden plots zooms.
A 1973 Gallup poll showed a record number of Americans planned to raise vegetables—some 40 million—the most ever. And that was before high prices hit.
The same poll showed another 30 million would raise vegetables if only they could find a wee patch to plant.
This revelation prompted Gardens For All, a non-profit, tax-exempt educational and counseling group, to help city people find land for a vegetable garden. GFA is helping landowners too, to bring their plots to the attention of would-be gardeners and to get those vegetables growing. GFA can help you rent your plots.
Rented gardens are booming not only around big cities— college towns are another prime area. Married students welcome this relief to their food budget.
If you’re a free enterpriser, just advertise garden plots for rent in the nearest weekly or daily paper. If you prefer a sponsor, check with a church, school, club, social agency, or business firm.
60 Years Ago
Week of August 6, 1964
100 YEARS AGO
By LON K. SAVAGE
Editor’s Note—The following is one of a series of articles on the Civil War. Each weekly installment covers events which occurred exactly 100 years ago.
Farragut Attacks,
Captures Mobile Bay
It was 100 years ago this week that Admiral David Glasgow Farragut became an American legend with his statement: “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”
It occurred in the Battle of Mobile Bay, in which Farragut attacked across a mine-filled bay, conquered two forts on land, three gunboats in the bay and defeated the Confederacy’s strongest sea vessel, the ironclad “Tennessee.”
Farragut launched his attack August 5 with a fleet of seven wooden ships and four monitors, heavily armored gunboats with revolving turrets. His plan: to run from the Gulf into the bay through a three-mile wide channel, under the guns of Fort Gaines on his left and the more powerful Fort Morgan on his right. Across the channel were mines—called torpedoes in those days—and inside the bay waited the gunboats and the “Tennessee.”
It was 7:15 a.m. when the Federal fleet, heading into the channel in two columns, opened fire on the forts. Half an hour later, the firing was general.
As the ships passed under Fort Morgan’s guns, the lead vessel, the “Brooklyn,” suddenly halted and signaled to Farragut on the flagship, “Hartford” right behind, that it was too close to a monitor. Farragut, fearing a traffic jam of ships behind the halted “Brooklyn,” ordered the “Brooklyn” to go ahead, but still the Brooklyn delayed.
Exasperated, Farragut ordered his own ship to pass the “Brooklyn” and take the lead. As the “Hartford,” with Farragut lashed to the rigging above so that he could watch the battle, passed the “Brooklyn,” the latter signaled that there were torpedoes ahead. It was then, according to the story, that Farragut spat out his command: “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead.”
Meanwhile, the two forts were raking the ships. On the Hartford, the signal officer wrote that “shot after shot came through the side, mowing down the men, deluging the decks with blood and scattering fragments of humanity . . .”
At the same time, the “Tecumseh,” one of the monitors, struck a mine, careened to one side and sank almost immediately, taking 93 of her 114 crewmen to the bottom.
By 7:30, the other ships had passed the forts and were in the bay, beyond reach of the fort’s guns. Now, they set upon the gunboats and made short shrift of them, capturing one, destroying another and sending the third fleeing across the bay to Mobile.
But the battle was not won. The ironclad “Tennessee” now headed into the Federal fleet with its power to destroy every ship. Farragut, his guns being almost useless, ordered his ships to ram the monster. One wooden ship did ram the “Tennessee” and pulled back almost a wreck herself, with the “Tennessee” hardly damaged.
For more than an hour, the Federal ships circled and blasted into the ironclad. At one point, one of Farragut’s own ships collided with and almost sank his flagship. But, little by little, as the Federals bounced shot after shot off the ironclad, the “Tennessee” began having trouble. Her commander was wounded, her guns damaged. Finally, her steering gear was shot away and she wallowed helplessly in the bay. A white flag went up, and she surrendered.
Within three weeks, the forts had surrendered under the bombardment, and the Confederacy had lost its last Gulf port.
Next week: Total war in Atlanta.
70 Years Ago
Week of August 5, 1954
EDITORIAL
A Deathless Record – – –
A Bill has been introduced in the house of representatives which recognizes the importance of the weekly newspapers of this nation as a fruitful source of valuable history. Titled H. R. 8627, it proposes to:
“Promote the preservation of true history of this nation as actually recorded in pioneer weekly newspapers, and currently published in weekly newspapers of the United States; to locate, microfilm, file and make available this valuable material to schools, libraries, clubs, lawmakers and every citizen; to provide a safe depository for weekly newspaper duplicate microfilms now in any library; and for other purposes.”
The thousands of country weekly newspapers in the United States stand in a unique position. Absolutely nothing takes the place of the hometown paper. It leaves a printed record of community life and activity that can be found nowhere else. For example, the Reese River Reville of Austin, Nevada, has been published continuously since May 16, 1863, two years after the first telegraph line across Nevada replaced the Pony Express. The files of the Reville, preserved in the courthouse vault, are said to be the only complete files of any Nevada newspaper dating back to territorial days, which illustrates the fact that local newspapers in every corner of our country furnish a deathless record of the people and the area they serve.
Local history is recorded and preserved by the country press of the nation—hopes, aspirations, facts, drama, marriages, births, deaths, political events, legal records—the whole chain of human activity.
- R. 8627 has been referred to the Committee on House Administration, of which committee Representative Robert C. Byrd, of West Virginia, is a member. We think this is a meritorious Bill and hope it will receive the favorable consideration of the congress.
