10 Years Ago
Week of January 7, 2016
Brandywine Takes On New Landscape
The primary interchange in Brandywine has undertaken some changes in the last month. Long time landmark, H & J Superette, formerly owned by the Harry Scott family, has been leveled and in addition, excavation is underway across the street on a vacant lot soon to house a new Family Dollar store.
The H & J property to the south of Route 33 was recently purchased by Mark Lambert of Franklin, owner of Long Mountain General Store. After weighing his options, Lambert decided he would be money ahead to demolish the former convenience store and start fresh. The new building will be dubbed Brandywine General Store and will feature Sunoco gasoline, on- and off-road diesel, hunting and fishing supplies, gifts and groceries.
H & J Video and Tan, adjacent to the one-acre site, will be connected to the new structure and will be renovated to feature a kitchen and eating area. Norman “Sonny” Shaw of Marlinton is overseeing construction of the new business.
Lambert hopes to open the doors to his new venture in early spring.
The vacant lot to the north of the site has also undergone some changes. M & W Excavating of Brandywine broke ground on Nov. 5 on the construction site of a Family Dollar store. The $2.2 million project will include over 8,300 square feet of retail space and will bring approximately 10-12 new jobs to the community.
According to courthouse documents, the property, a little over two acres, is owned by Brandywine FDS, LLC, of Charlotte, N.C.
20 Years Ago
Week of January 5, 2006
Commission Approves FHS Class Portraits in Community Building
It isn’t only a matter of properly preserving the history of Franklin High School graduating classes.
It also has to do with the preservation of a big piece of Pendleton County history.
Those were the words of Donna Hoover (Circleville High (class of 1963) and her husband, Olin, who graduated from Franklin in 1960 and was the high school’s principal from 1980 until it was closed in 1998 to make for Pendleton County High School.
What the “it” refers to is finding a fitting place to hang the class portraits of every Franklin High School class, the same class photos that once graced the walls of the old high school.
On Tuesday morning, the Hoovers and county school superintendent Doug Lambert met with the Pendleton County Commission to ask for approval to honor the FHS class portraits—all 68 of them—by displaying them in the Pendleton Community Building. The commission unanimously voted to allow that to happen.
Since 1998, FHS portraits have been gathering dust in the Kline building.
Some time ago, there was intermittent discussion at school board meetings of getting all the Circleville and Franklin class photos and hanging them on a wall in the PCHS building.
However, the Circleville class portraits are now on striking display in the restored Circleville High School building.
“I’m so proud of what the CHS Preservation committee for everything they’ve done,” Donna Hoover said. “Circleville doesn’t begrudge Franklin doing for their history what the Circleville alumni have done for ours.”
Olin Hoover, who made it a personal project to find and assemble about six years’ worth of missing FHS class portraits when he was the principal, said that a couple of class portraits appear to be missing from the Kline building.
It appears that they may have been loaned for class reunions and haven’t yet been returned.
Also, some of the glass on the picture frames is broken and needs to be repaired.
Some of the old portraits need to be cleaned and restored. The average size of the older class composites is 27 inches by 29 and one half inches. For the larger ones, the average size is 32 by three eighths inches by 42 and one half inches.
30 Years Ago
Week of January 4, 1996
SUGAR GROVE
A friend of the writer gave her a list which was presented as rules for having a happy 1996. Feel free to take any or all items on the list and use them as resolutions. If you follow them, your new year will certainly be a happy one.
Hug a kid, cry during movies, tell a joke, cuddle a baby, learn to watch snails, laugh at Republicans, laugh at Democrats, walk somewhere, hug trees, open up, listen to old people, giggle with children, hug a friend, nuzzle a puppy, laugh a lot, believe in magic, give money away, take lots of naps, make friends with freedom and uncertainty, plant impossible gardens, swing as high as you can on a swing set…by moonlight, cultivate moods, write thank-you letters, play with everything, take moon baths — Have a Happy New Year!
40 Years Ago
Week of January 9, 1986
Lottery Tickets Go on Sale Today; Tickets Available in Pendleton
Pendleton County will be well supplied with West Virginia Lottery tickets when they go on sale today at 12:15 p.m. Doris Bonner of Elkins, lottery marketing specialist, was in Pendleton County Monday delivering lottery tickets to the seven retail outlets that will handle the sale of lottery tickets here.
In Pendleton County, tickets will be sold at five locations in Franklin—Franklin IGA Store, Franklin Meat Market, High’s Dairy Store, Thompson’s Motel and the West Virginia ABC Store; and at Raines Store at Riverton and at Kile’s Store at Upper Tract.
Contracts To Be Let Friday for Work on South Branch
Contractors interested in bidding on river channel work on the South Branch of the Potomac River in Pendleton County from Franklin south to the Highland County line will get a first hand view of the work to be done today when they are taken on a tour of the river by personnel of the Soil Conservation Service.
Similar plans will be followed in reclaiming the following reaches of Potomac River tributaries:
North Fork from Virginia to Mouth of Seneca, North Fork from Mouth of Seneca to the mouth, South Branch from Virginia to Route 33, South Branch from Route 33 to Moorefield, South Branch from Moorefield to the Trough and including Lost River and New Creek, the Smoke Hole and Trough sections of the South Branch, South Branch from the Trough to the mouth, and the South Fork in Pendleton County.
50 Years Ago
Week of January 8, 1976
DAHMER
Some weeks ago, the Dahmer writer mentioned that the month of February 1976, had five Sundays. A nice letter was received from Alonzo Teter of Onego, stating the people on that side of the mountain enjoyed a good riddle or joke and that we are wondering if you know when was the last time February had five Sundays. The last time was 1948, the one before that was 1920, this year 1976, and no more in this century. Mr. Teter knew the answer and he made me scratch my head on that one.
60 Years Ago
Week of January 6, 1966
One of Town’s Oldest Retail Firms Included Among First-of-Year Sales
One of Franklin’s oldest mercantile firms changed hands January 1 in a rash of property transactions which appeared to highlight the beginning of the new year in Franklin.
Boggs Mercantile Company, which has been one of Franklin’s leading retail establishments under one name or another since its founding back in the 1880s, was sold Saturday by Miss Sylva Boggs to Mr. and Mrs. Grant Alt of Franklin.
The firm was founded by Miss Boggs’ father, the late M. K. Boggs in the early 1880s. He had various partners in the business and the firm was operated under various names until 1930 when the business was taken over by Miss Boggs. She has operated it under the name of Boggs Mercantile Company since that time.
When Miss Boggs assumed management of the firm in 1930, the store was located on the east side of Main Street next to the Mary Spaulding residence where the Boggs apartment building is now located. In 1932 Miss Boggs built the present store building on the west side of Main Street and moved the business to that location.
Among other property transactions which marked the beginning of the new year in Franklin was the purchase by Sites Chevrolet, Inc., of three separate properties from Mrs. Laurene Retterer.
Included in the Sites Chevrolet, Inc., purchase were a parking lot on Pine Street which the Chevrolet distributor has used under lease for a number of years as a used car lot, a dwelling house and lot on the corner of High Street and Spruce Street adjoining the Ruddle Meat Market, and a dwelling house and lot on the corner of High Street and the alley leading from High Street to the Franklin Grade School.
In another transaction, Robert Jackson Sites of Franklin purchased the building now occupied by Sites Parts Company from Mrs. Pauline Keller, Eleanor Kay Mitchell and Judy Ann Mitchell.
The Sites Parts Company building is located on the corner of Main Street and Spruce Street and is the building originally occupied by the Franklin Bank and later used as the Franklin Post Office.
County Has 67 Car Wrecks in ‘65
A total of 67 automobile accidents occurred in Pendleton County during 1965, an accident analysis recently completed by the local State Police Detachment, shows.
The accidents resulted in 45 personal injuries, one fatality, and $62,010 in property damage. Officers made 50 arrests as a result of the accidents.
Upon completing the analysis, officers said the most dangerous place in the county is the concrete bridge on Route 33 in Brandywine.
COW HAS 4 CALVES IN 1 YEAR
Mr. Marvin Simmons is the proud owner of a cow having four calves in 1965. The cow gave birth to a set of twins on January 4 and again on December 21. All the calves were living and healthy.
70 Years Ago
Week of January 5, 1956
DAHMER
Wyoming, Delaware
December 17, 1955
Dear Mr. Dahmer,
It has just occurred to me that fifty years ago this winter you taught our school on Upper Timber Ridge.
Though I was but a small lad at that time, I seem to remember some of those days almost as well as if it were but yesterday.
You were an excellent teacher, Mr. Dahmer; so fair and just in your dealings with the pupils, and so interested in their welfare and training. So I wish to take this opportunity to thank you.
J. Mayne Bennett
EDITORIALS
“Sixteen Tons” – – –
One of the current hit songs is entitled “Sixteen Tons”— a lament depicting the hard lot of the coal miners. It makes a good song but it’s to be hoped that no one gains the impression it describes today’s conditions in the mines. Changes in coal mining have been revolutionary with power taking the place of muscle.
The coal miner is one of the highest paid industrial workers in the nation. Modern machinery to accomplish almost every task connected with the production of coal is rapidly making hand labor a thing of the past. The miner is becoming a highly skilled machine operator. Just in the last five years progress has been phenomenally rapid, with production per man-day increasing from 6-3/4 tons to approximately 10 tons.
Mechanization, in addition to easing the lot of the miner, has also been of prime importance in the industry’s efforts to meet the competition of other fuels and to provide abundant high-grade coal tailored to fit the needs of every class of consumer from large industrial boiler to small home furnaces.
Yes, the coal industry depicted in “Sixteen Tons” is long gone in America. All forecasts indicate that the energy demands of our nation will grow at an increasing rate for as far as we now can see into future years. All forms of energy, whether they be oil, coal, gas or atomic, will be called upon to carry a heavy burden. Coal is a basic fuel, and it must be maintained as an efficient productive industry able to meet the demand which rapidly increasing energy requirements will place upon it.
