30 Years Ago
Week of June 10, 1993
Fewer Farmers
In United States
The United States is depending on a fewer number of people to raise agricultural products.
Latest figures show that in 1990, there were 67 million people living in rural areas, about 27 percent of the U.S. population. But, only 4.6 million people lived on farms, about two percent of the population.
The figures show that farm resident population declined by 24 percent in the 1980s and 25 percent in the 1970s. While the rural population is increasing, the farm population is declining.
SUGAR GROVE
Abundant Foliage
Foretells Hard Winter
With the use of satellites, forecasting the weather has become a little more accurate than in days gone by. Our forefathers depended solely on nature for their weather forecasting and surprisingly they were quite successful. The abundant green foliage this spring is a sure sign for an unseasonably bad winter. Many of the older generation have made comments regarding the unusual amount of green foliage—time will only tell whether this prediction will be correct!
Tips for Successfully Transplanting
Young Plants
Preparing young ones for a move can be tricky. Just ask any gardener.
For weeks, backyard growers have been carefully raising little seedlings indoors. Now, it’s time to transplant. The success of the move will depend on how well prepared both the plants and the garden are.
If possible, transplant on a cloudy day or in early evening to keep the plants from wilting under the hot sun.
About two hours before transplanting, thoroughly water the soil in which the plants are growing. Handle the plants carefully to avoid disturbing the roots and bruising the stems.
50 Years Ago
Week of June 14, 1973
General Store
Luring City Folk
The general store could be facing its biggest crisis since the “Indians” threw all that British tea into Boston harbor and produced a brief shelf shortage.
American tourists are turning the old general store into a pale imitation of its once ever-present, robust, self–anything shelf.
The supermarket has taken over that description, thanks to mass merchandising and market research. Some historians feel that the general store, or country store, is an anachronism that has little to offer a modern world beyond a taste of the Good Old Days.
Throughout the country, there are several hundred emporiums calling themselves general stores. Most were revived or reborn in hopes of luring citified folks who remembered or heard tell of the cracker barrel days, and yearned for them again.
But sure as “old fashioned penny candy” now costs 2 cents, today’s general store is as quick to sell new souvenir sunbonnets as to offer long-gone American history.
Back in the 1700s general stores were born in a single room. Then they quickly grew into community centers where gossip was exchanged by women-folk, where opinions were expressed at the potbellied stove, where traveling salesmen traded news from “down the road apiece.”
Today synthetic general stores often do a Saturday afternoon business every day, ringing up profits on an 1880 cash register retrieved from an antique shop.
Some general stores are in fact survivors of the last century. But they are in constant danger of being cleaned out by more and more American travlers, usually lured by the new intentionally old-time stores equipped with aged artifacts as well as artful imitations.
60 Years Ago
Week of June 20, 1963
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.
- Va. Enters Union Amid War, Strife
West Virginia became a state 100 years ago this week — ironically while Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee streamed across the state’s eastern panhandle to invade the north.
It was June 20 that the rugged mountainous area that used to be part of Virginia entered the Union as the 35th state. The occasion was marked by ceremony at the state capitol, Wheeling, but elsewhere it drew relatively little attention. West Virginia entered the union while the Civil War—which had brought the state into existence—raged on every front, and most of the people in the nation were too busy with the war to pay great attention to the new state.
West Virginia’s creation as a state had been two years in the making. Shortly after Virginia had seceded from the Union in April, 1861, northwestern Virginians began efforts to keep their state loyal to the Union.
First, they had formed what they called a reorganized state of Virginia, acting somewhat as if the old one had gone out of existence. A new governor and new United States senators were named; a new General Assembly was formed. The secession of Virginia was nullified.
By the end of 1861, the northwestern Virginians had decided to set up their own state—a new state—and were busy writing a new constitution.
During 1862, the constitution was completed and started its long journey through Congress. On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln signed the West Virginia statehood bill.
But that was not the end. In February of ‘63, a constitutional convention in the state ratified changes made by Congress in their state constitution, providing for the gradual abolition of slavery. In March, West Virginia voters approved the constitution by a vote of 18,862 to 514. On April 19, Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring the admission of West Virginia to the Union, effective two months thereafter. And two months thereafter, June 20, 1863, became West Virginia Day.
On that day, crowds gathered at the red brick Linsley Institute building, the temporary capitol, at Wheeling.
Under a bright sun, on a flag draped platform, the state’s officers were installed. Immediately afterward, the two houses of the legislature withdrew to their chambers to begin writing and adopting laws, and the state was in business.
But the admission of West Virginia by no means interrupted the war. Even as the admission ceremony was being held in Wheeling, Lee’s army streamed northward through the Shenandoah Valley, across the West Virginia panhandle, across the Potomac River into Maryland and headed for Chambersburg, Pa. And at Vicksburg, Miss., Federal troops continued blasting at the surrounded and trapped Confederates in the city, waiting for the doomed city to fall.
Next week: Lee Enters Pennsylvania.
West Virginia
Marks End of
100 Years of Statehood
Today is West Virginia’s birthday. One hundred years ago today, thirty-five small girls in red, white and blue dresses welcomed the first governor of the state, Arthur I. Boreman.
The place was at Wheeling, at high noon. The girls represented the states that had been admitted, West Virginia being the thirty-fifth.
West Virginia was a key state in the Civil War. If she had seceded with Virginia, it would have meant that the South would have controlled territory along the Ohio River to a point of Pittsburgh and to the East within fifty miles of Washington.
If the people west of the Alleghenies had not remained loyal to the Union, the war would have been much longer, there would have been greater destruction of property, and many more lives would have been lost before peace could have been declared. West Virginia contributed importantly to the binding together of the states into one great nation.
70 Years Ago
Week of June 11, 1953
Lie Detector Used
On Twenty Youths
Trooper Bill Cunningham announced this week that a polygraph was recently used to determine the guilt or innocence of twenty boys in connection with the robbery last winter at Franklin high school. The polygraph, commonly known as the lie detector, pronounced all of the boys innocent.
The instrument records changes in blood pressure, pulse rate, respiration, and muscular reflexes. The continual disturbances associated with lying produce changes in these bodily activities, in spite of the individual’s attempt to hide thm. Changes in these activities are therefore taken as evidence of the likelihood of lying.
Anglers Catch
5,000 Trout
At Spruce Lake Opening
Fifteen thousand fish and 10,000 fishermen were on hand last Saturday for the dedication of Spruce Knob Lake.
Fishemen stood in line to toss in their hooks.
It was so crowded they called off the dedication ceremonies.
It was like an Oklahoma land rush when a cannon was fired as a signal that fishing was legal. More than 3,000 fishlines hit the water simultaneously. At the same time, 381 boats, poised on a hillside above the lake, were pushed into the clear, cold water.
About 1,000 fishermen had established camps near the lake on Thursday and Friday.
Many of the anglers had taken stations on the lake shore at daylight to assure themselves of a place to fish.
The lake had been stocked with about 15,000 rainbow trout earlier this spring.
The conservation director estimated that about 5,000 trout were caught.
Spruce Knob Lake was constructed last winter on the headwaters of Narrow Ridge Run in Monongahela National Forest, about 30 miles from here.
It was the first major project built with funds paid by fishermen and hunters for the National Forest hunting and fishing stamps.
Spruce Knob Lake will be restocked periodically to maintain an ample fish population.
PO Box Rents Up
Effective July 1, the rental fee for post office lock boxes will be increased. The basic rent schedule now in effect has not been changed since 1907 and the increased charges are made to conform with the increased cost of providing the equipment and maintaining the service.
At the Franklin office the increase is as follows:
No. 1 or $.45 boxes, are increased to $.90.
No. 2 or $.60 boxes, are increased to $1.10.
No. 3 or $.75 boxes, are increased to $1.50.
Editorials – – –
ONE FOR THE BOOK
A resolution calling for an amendment to give the vote to 18-year-olds is being debated in Congress. An unusual Senate hearing was held on June third. Often these Congressional hearing last for weeks but this one lasted less than ten minutes.
Senator Kilgore said he was for the bill but since he had other work to do, could he be excused? Senator Humphrey sent word he had other business. Only one veterans’ organization, the Amvets, supported the measure.
If a man is old enough to be sent to Asia to die for his country, he should be old enough to vote for the politicians who play such a major role in his destiny.
It seems that the several hundred thousands of Americans who vote the communist party ticket every election are more intelligent voters than the young soldiers.
THE ARMISTICE
Syngman Rhee, president of the South Korea republic, said this week that his country will not accept the armistice proposal which is now being outlined. In a letter delivered to Rhee Monday, President Eisenhower said, “The moment has now come when we must decide whether to carry on by warfare a struggle for the unification of Korea or whether to pursue this goal by political and other means.”
An Armistice at this time would be acceptable to most Americans, but it would be a death warrant to the young Korean republic. As much as we have sacrificed, Korea has given her all. Cities have been leveled, farms ravaged, and millions of people murdered.
Certainly President Eisenhower must know that Korea will not be united by “political and other means.” Once the shooting stops, Korea’s dream of a unified country will be smashed. The Reds are not going to be talked out of North Korea.
Amerian diplomats have certainly made a mess of this little peace-loving country. When the peace was being written, they permitted the country to be cut in half—half free and half slave. Had they but had the good sense to adhere to the words of Lincoln, “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” the Korean war would have been averted.
Now that the country has been ravished and raped, they want to call a halt. It will take a century to rebuild Korea to her pre-war status. The little country we were going to save faces a long, dark night—in worse shape than she was when the whole mess started.
