10 Years Ago
Week of October 3, 2013
Fall Foliage
Makes October
Peak Month
For North Fork Tourism
The big season for tourism is winding down in the North Fork Valley, but it goes with a bang, not a whimper, because October may be the busiest month of the year.
For Wanda Lambert, who owns the Gateway Restaurant, there is no question that October is her biggest month. She started renting the Gateway on Sept. 26, 2004, and purchased the restaurant a couple of years later from Ted Davis.
The Gateway is so named because it sits at the gateway to Spruce Knob, which is about nine miles and a 45-minute drive from the restaurant. Lambert doesn’t believe the highest point in West Virginia gets its due in terms of publicity, but it brings in plenty of people to her place of business.
Lambert employs 10 people, five of whom are full time workers. Memorial Day weekend is the biggest weekend of the year for the Gateway while the single busiest day is Mother’s Day. But October is the biggest month of the year, and Lambert is emphatic about that.
After all, it’s the business she gets in the summer months and during the fall season that allows Gateway to operate on a year-round basis.
SUGAR GROVE
Soon, the countryside will gracefully turn cooler, and there will be a miraculous change in the foliage, with enviable views at every twist and turn.
This autumn season will soon have the air that is as invigorating as a crisp Winesap apple, which will require a blanket on the bed, with mornings calling for a jacket or sweater.
There is something to be said about the simplicity of life here and the wonderfulness of the mountains that brings out what is basic to everyone. There is something to be said about the rural life making folks competent. Traditions still exist here. There is clean air, and it is here that one can listen to the rhythms of the earth, the home and the heart.
20 Years Ago
Week of October 2, 2003
One Man’s Junk
Is Another’s Treasure
“The idea of stuffing $100 bills into your trash is silly,” says Tony Hyman, “but Americans throw away things worth five or 10 times that without giving it a thought.”
When moving, a Missouri man discarded a small box of arrowheads. The teen who rescued the tossed-out treasures from the dump promptly sold them for $10,000 to an Ohio collector.
You’ve never thrown out an arrowhead? How about a tin can or briar pipe? Game or toy? Cereal box? Phonograph record? A magazine? Perhaps an old photo?
A Pennsylvania family sold their tiny wood frame house for $38,000, cleaned house and set out five trash cans, one containing old photographs worth $93,000.
It’s easy to make mistakes like these, according to Hyman, since items don’t have to be old or look valuable to be worth money to today’s collector.
Almost anything more than 20 years old is sought by someone, according to Hyman, who for 23 years has helped people sell everything from shrunken heads to old Girl Scout uniforms.
“It’s surprising what people will pay for,” Hyman says, noting that he has paid $1,500 for an empty cigar box. New Yorker David Smith has paid that for a frying pan and Floridian David Herz shelled out that same amount for a plastic model kit.
Rod Baum in New Jersey will pay you up to $2,000 for The Caine Mutiny soundtrack or the first pressing of Bob Dylan’s Freewheeling.
Another source of $100 bills is fishing tackle. Thousands of fishing lures can bring $100 to $5,000 each from fishing collectibles author, Rick Edmiston, who will evaluate all your fishing gear at no charge, no matter where you live.
Talking to an expert by phone or email is almost always the best way to sell, says Hyman. The secret to selling your trash for top dollar is knowing who to call.
When someone says, “Your cereal box is worth $2,000,” the question you need to ask is “worth $2,000 to whom?” It’s probably fewer than a dozen people nationwide.
It’s nearly impossible for the amateur seller to know who to trust to give accurate information and pay fair prices, according to Hyman.
Badges, banjos, banks, Barbie, baseball, bayonettes, BB guns, Beatles, beer, Bibles, bicycles, blankets, blueprints, boats, bobbing head dolls, bonds, books, boots, bottles, bowling shirts, boxes, boxing, bridal gowns, bride and groom cake tops, British royalty, bronzes, bullets, buttons and building parts are among 200 collectibles starting with B.
“I even found reputable buyers for old bathtubs and blowtorches,” Hyman laughs.
“You don’t go to your barber with a toothache,” Hyman says, “and you don’t ask your dentist to fix your flat. Selling collectibles is the same. If you want the best advice and most money, you must deal with specialists.”
The secret of selling for top dollar is knowing who to call.
40 Years Ago
Week of October 20, 1983
People May Live
On Moon by 2000
The gravitational force exerted by the moon tugs at every object on earth as well as the imagination of many who foresee a manned based there.
“I think we’ll have people permanently on the moon by the year 2000,” says Hans Mark, deputy administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The first moon settlement would consist of not more than 20 people living in prefabricated huts covered with lunar soil to shield them from cosmic radiation.
At least that’s the scenario envisioned by Hubert P. Davis, senior vice president of Eagle Engineering, a Houston-based consulting firm that does space-oriented studies for industry and government agencies.
Davis thinks that initially it would be a hardship assignment and the staff serving the station would probably stay ony three to six months at a time.
“They’ll go through intensive screening, too, perhaps working first on an earth-orbiting space station,” he predicts.
60 Years Ago
Week of October 17, 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.
Grant, Thomas
Take Commands In West
The train from Cairo, Illinois, to Louisville, Kentucky, chugged to a stop in the Indianapolis station 100 years ago this week, paused a minute, then got up steam to depart again. Suddenly, a messenger ran up to stop the train, boarded it and reported to a bearded man inside.
It was October 17, 1863, and the bearded man was promoted Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the Union hero of Vicksburg who had cut the Confederacy in two. The messenger had important information: Edwin M. Staunton, Secretary of War, was in the station.
Grant immediately went to Staunton. It was their first meeting. Introductions were made. They spoke briefly and Staunton dismissed the special train that had brought him from Washington. Then he and Grant boarded Grant’s train for Louisville together.
As Grant describes it in his memoirs, Staunton handed him two orders on the train and told him he could choose the one he wished to obey. Grant read them—both created a new “Military Division of the Mississippi,” encompassing nearly all the war territory west of the Alleghenies to the Mississippi River; both also put Grant in charge of the new division—a healthy promotion for him.
But there was one big difference: one order left the department commanders intact; the other relieved Gen. William S. Rosecrans of command of the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga and replaced him with Gen. George H. Thomas, “the Rock of Chickamauga.”
“I accepted the latter,” Grant wrote later. And with that decision, Rosecrans’ military career took a tumble from which it never recovered, while Thomas climbed into the ranks of the top Civil War generals.
In Louisville, Grant and Staunton talked for hours over the situation in Grant’s new command and especially the situation at Chattanooga: how Rosecrans’ (now Thomas’) Army of the Cumberland was cut off from its supply line; how the men were hungry and ill-clothed; and how Braxton Bragg’s Confederates waited for the army to be starved from its position.
After two days of talk, Grant and his wife (who had accompanied him) called on relatives at Louisville one night. As they returned to their hotel about 11 o’clock, each person they met on the street told Grant to hurry to the hotel, that Staunton was impatient to see him on an urgent matter.
Grant found Staunton in his room, pacing up and down in a dressing gown. Staunton turned to Grant and showed him a message. Rosecrans, the message said, was about to abandon Chattanooga. (The message, actually, was not correct.)
Grant reacted immediately. He fired off a telegram to Rosecrans announcing his (Grant’s) new command. He fired off another telegram to Rosecrans, relaying the order from Washington that relieved Rosecrans of his command. He fired off a telegram to Thomas, placing him in command and ordering him to hold Chattanooga at all costs, until he, Grant, arrived.
Then he prepared to leave for Chattanooga. Before he left, a reply came in from Thomas: “We will hold the town till we starve.”
70 Years Ago
Week of October 15, 1953
Six Called
For October Service
The Pendleton County call for induction for the month of October numbers six and will be filled by the following registrants: Charles Jackie Eckard, Sugar Grove, Warnie Delane Lambert, Franklin, Jackie Lee Taylor, Washington (formerly of Brandywine), Sonny Allen Puffenbarger, Sugar Grove, Russell Ray Day, Riverton, and Blake William Sites, Franklin.
Airborne Soldier
Pfc. Philip Rexrode, son of Mr. and Mrs. Emory C. Rexrode of Franklin, is serving with the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, N. C. Pfc. Rexrode entered the army in 1952.
Letter to the Editor . . .
Editor, The Pendleton Times,
Franklin, W. Va.
It is quite likely that most of the taxpayers throughout the county do not know that there has been some effort made to claim part or nearly all of the lot on the west side of the court house for Presbyterian church property, and this has been agitated for the past three or four years or longer.
During this time the county court members have fought against it in the interest of the taxpayers of the county.
There seems to be a possibility that at the next regular session of the court, which will be on October 24, a delegation of folks may appear in the interest of the Presbyterian church to make a further effort to establish their claim.
The title to the court house lot, the oldest deed on record in the office of the county clerk, clearly locates the boundary lines of the lot; and the land lying between the court house and the Presbyterian church is covered definitely by this title, for the county property. This lot is needed with the court house for parking and for various purposes, and the church has the use of it for parking upon almost any occasion when needed for such purpose.
It would be a service to the taxpayers of the county and themselves if a number of interested taxpayers would appear in the above-mentioned session and lend their efforts toward getting this important matter settled properly. — John A. Nelson, Jr., President of the Court.
Congratulations Cal
Calvin W. Price, homespun editor of a country weekly, received a permanent memorial to his name yesterday.
The state conservation commission formally named a new 11,000-acre state forest in Price’s own Pocahontas county as “The Calvin W. Price State Forest.”
Price is the veteran editor and publisher of the Pocahontas Times. His personal comments in the weekly have been widely quoted and the editor has made countless appearances as an after-dinner speaker.
The new state forest consists of a boundary purchased by the state from the New River company of Mt. Hope. It is located in the southern end of Pocahontas county, with some three or four hundred acres spilling over into Greenbrier county.
The commission said the forest will be used chiefly as a public hunting domain. It is located adjacent to Watoga State Park in the vicinity of Marlinton, the Pocahontas county seat and Cal Price’s home town.
The commission said it had decided to honor Price for his long-time support of the conservation program and good conservation practices.