30 Years Ago
Week of July 6, 1995
Pendleton County One of 6 Places In National Food Study
Six communities selected from across the nation will serve as development sites for a local food systems project directed by a Western Maryland University political scientist. One is Pendleton County.
The six sites selected are located in Los Angeles, CA; Berkshire County, MA; Rochester, NY; Pittsburgh, PA; Austin, TX; and Pendleton County. More than 60 such groups inquired about the national project and 16 applied for the six available slots.
Over the next two years, each of the six groups will receive general advice and technical assistance from the national project teams as well as travel grants for four people from each area to attend planning workshops. Each group also will receive a collection of written resources to use in developing a local food policy organization.
The six groups, when joined with several existing municipal food policy councils, are expected to serve as a foundation for a nationwide network of such organizations.
DAHMER
Two Inches of Rain Falls in 40 Minutes In Dahmer Gap
Heavy showers of two inches of rain fell in the space of 40 minutes in Dahmer Gap on June 26. W. A. Dahmer, who lives near the head of Dahmer Gap, stated the stream of water was higher than the great flood of 1985. During this long rainy spell, five and one-half inches was recorded at Dahmer. This rain caught a number of farmers in their hay harvest, but it sure made things in the garden, field corn and pastures grow like magic.
50 Years Ago
Week of July 3, 1975
Fate of Crank-Type Phones at Stake In Friday Hearing
The question of whether the old crank-type telephone now in use in the North Fork section of Pendleton County will be replaced by the modern dial telephone was debated at length last Friday at an all day hearing conducted by the West Virginia Public Service Commission in the Pendleton County Courthouse in Franklin.
The North Fork section of Pendleton County is one of the few remaining places in the United States where the old crank-type telephone still is in use. Since the application has been made to replace it, feature stories on the present system have appeared in metropolitan newspapers in Washington, D. C., Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and others throughout the United States.
The present system is made up of two separate companies, the Macksville Mutual Telephone Association and the Circleville Mutual Telephone System Association. They have a combined number of 418 members.
Also indicated there are 458 subscribers for service in the new system and that 189 of that number presently do not have telephone service but desire it.
It Takes Experts To Make Proper Use Of Hoe and Hose
The hoe and the hose should be used only by experts. Does that include you? I imagine it does, but you’d be surprised to know how many folks do not know how to use these garden implements properly.
If a garden soil has been properly prepared, there’s no reason to cultivate or hoe the garden other than to control weeds. And hoeing or cultivating to control weeds should be done only in the top inch to an inch-and-a-half of the soil.
Frequent, shallow watering is harmful. Water should be applied to one area just as fast as it will soak into the soil, with no run-off, for a period of 45 minutes to an hour. Then move to another area and repeat the process.
Even in extremely dry weather, it is advisable not to water more often than once each week.
A Little Weather You Can Do Something About
The old adage that “everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it” no longer rings so true.
At any rate, when you’re talking about “little weather”—technically known as microclimate—it’s the weather that immediately surrounds every house and yard. Today, microclimates can be controlled through our own efforts, even though in limited fashion.
There are a variety of techniques to modify immediate weather, including how to harness the sun, wind, and water to make the weather warmer or cooler, more windy or less, humid or dry.
Surprisingly, what you do to your microclimate outside your home will have a definite effect inside your home.
Tests by agricultural stations of state universities show that the climate outside the house has a definite effect upon the climate within it.
Deciduous trees provide shade which can reduce the heat inside the house by 20 to 40 degrees, help eliminate “attic furnace” and give you protection from the hot glare of the sun.
Trees act as natural air conditioners, improving your living outdoors and indoors, as well as conserving money and energy.
There are various other ways to make your own climate cooler. Vines, planted ground cover, even the lawn will help create coolness.
Lawns not only reduce heat, but also contribute to noise and dust control.
A garden pool is a good example of how to harness water to create a cooler climate.
Color can be a factor for cooling or heating. Lighter colors reflect more than darker ones which tend to absorb the sun’s heat. In addition more paved area around a home makes for a warmer climate inside.
Trees play the part of windbreakers in the winter when properly placed around a home. Windbreaks, natural and artificial, have a warming effect.
Windbreaks can help you enjoy your garden more. Hedges, covered patios, lath enclosures are just some of the techniques to use to control the wind and climate.
Microclimates, the little weathers clustered about every house and yard, are the only ones over which we can exert any control through our own individual efforts. Thoughtful orientation of structures and plantings can increase or lessen radiation.
60 Years Ago
Week of June 30, 1965
EDITORIALS
Present Law Does Only Half a Job – – –
West Virginia’s United States Senators Jennings Randolph and Robert C. Byrd have acted to correct a situation which long has imposed an injustice upon 11 West Virginia counties. Senators Randolph and Byrd have introduced in Congress a bill which would permit a portion of the proceeds from the operation of national forest lands to be returned to the counties in which national forest land is located and distributed in the same manner in which the real estate taxes on the land would have been distributed if the land was still privately owned and subject to taxation.
The West Virginia counties affected by the present method of distributing the local share of national forest income, and their respective acreages of national forest land are as follows: Pocahontas 276,840, Randolph 170,263, Pendleton 108,871, Greenbrier 98,843, Tucker 93,702, Webster 14,126, Preston 3,891, and Hampshire 2,645.
70 Years Ago
Week of June 30, 1955
Four Inducted In June
Four Pendleton County men were inducted into the Army June 17, S. F. Retterer, clerk of the local draft board, announced today.
The new inductees, who were transported to Fairmont in Simmons’ Cab, are Ralph A. Bennett, Jennings H. Hartman, Franklin D. Hartman and William L. Heavener.
No Extension For Old License Plates
There will be no extension of West Virginia’s auto license plates this year past the expiration date of July 1 and persons who have failed to obtain new plates should get them immediately, Joseph P. Condry, commissioner of the West Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, said this week.
Condry stated that the department, by working day and night for the past two months, has been able to keep up with orders for new licenses and that so far some 290,000 of an estimated final total of around 330,000 “A” licenses have been issued. Persons ordering license plates by mail should allow about four days, one day each way for mailing time and about two days for processing, he said.
67,583 lbs. Wool Sold Through Local Pool
Two hundred sixty-five farmers pooled 67,583 pounds of wool and mohair through the Pendleton County wool pool last week. The advance payment on the wool and mohair amounted to $28,929.52.
80 Years Ago
Week of June 29, 1945
WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS
TRACTORS
For Overseas
To enable cultivation of 2,900,000 acres capable of producing 1,500,000 tons of cereals, 14,500 tractors will be sent to 11 European countries by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation administration to help them raise their own foodstuffs and thus ease the serious food situation imperiling the continent.
With 13,000 of the tractors to be built in this country and the other 1,500 in Britain, the machines will be distributed among paying and non-paying countries alike.
For the paying countries, France will receive 3,798; Italy, 810; Netherlands, 530; Norway, 330; Belgium, 150; and Denmark, 70. Of the non-paying nations, Poland will obtain 3,256; Yugoslavia, 2,500; Czechoslovakia, 1,500; Greece, 1,261; and Albania, 25.
MOUTH OF SENECA
“The Jeep”
Back in 1940 we heard and read so much about our modern “Jeep” that we assumed it was a war machine equivalent to a 60 or 70 ton tank and when the Army was about to move into “Seneca Camp” we were on the highway, U.S. 33, our attention was attracted by unusual and terrific rumbling and roaring and we assumed a mighty Jeep was bearing down on us and for safety, we would jump behind a large tree, but the Jeep proved to be a “mighty moving van.” Well why give a little cart like that such a funny name when it came, I wondered? On investigation of the records, I find that on a pretty Sunday in 1940, down at Ft. Myers, Va., where they were going to hold a Jeep demonstration with a lot of “Top Kick” Army officers present, and Maj. General George A. Lynch who swears during the week but won’t swear on a pretty Sunday, when he saw the ‘dern thing’ go up hill and down hill, over ditches, logs, etc., exclaimed, “Jeepers! Creepers, what a machine.” John Payne, the inventor of it, rolled off of it, and said, “General, you have christened the machine “Jeep” and so it goes.
The Ford and Bantom Motor Companies made the most of them, with Ford a way out in front.
Speaking of Ford, I have been informed that Henry is going to purchase “The Willow Run” plant and convert it into a farm producing unit that will make farm machinery so cheap after the war that any ‘one horse farmer’ can buy it.
105 Years Ago
Week of July 2, 1920
REXRODE
The smallpox scare is over, and forgotten.
The high cost of living is still a live wire, and will likely not soon be forgotten.
Farmers are busy plowing corn and potatoes. The wheat and hay harvest will soon be on, and the next thing will be something else.
Our road from Crabbottom across Snowy Mountain is now worked up in tip top shape, and the tin lizzies go whizzing along at a dangerous speed now.
Amby Rexrode has purchased a new buggy, and says it will keep him dry no matter how hard it rains.
Luther Mullenax was trying his motor over our new road Sunday. It is no use for the Dry Run Scribe to poke his proboscis this way to smell for moonshine for the best us poor sinners ever get is a little old hen not half sweetened. While in this section they have it in a more condensed form, good enough for teacher’s agents, church going people, and even praying men to whet up a little on when the spirit does not move strong enough, Selah.
DAHMER
Work on the new Lutheran church near Mitchell is progressing nicely under the supervision of Willie Harper.
Since wool seems to be at a low ebb, Mrs. Dollie M. Propst has decided to use the old time method and make some good stout homespun cloth that wears longer and better than any other.
