100 YEARS AGO — 1919

Local happenings: Miss Sallie Scott will open her private school at her residence in Park Place on Sept. 8: The Devine brothers have sold their Irish Cobler potato crop to different parties for a total of $2,200. The crop of nine or 10 acres was grown on the farm of C.M. Eastland, known as “Woodlawn.”: Only one arrest was made on the carnival grounds during the week it was in Danville. On the last night, a mane was arrested after the shows for being drunk and disorderly. He was fined $6.50 in police court this morning: In Kansas, there is a campaign against women teachers who use rouge. The state superintendent of public instruction in Kansas, Miss Lizzie Wooster, announced that she will ask that those teachers use rouge will have their certificates revoked.

After several weeks of investigation, J. Clarke Porter of Colorado and Lexington, has leased the property of Mrs. James D. Shelby, of Danville and Mr. Isaac Shelby, of Junction City, on a royalty basis and will soon begin mining the clay on the farm. The property contains 50 acres and is located just outside of Junction City on part of the Linnietta Springs Farm, known as Blue Lick. The property contains a peculiar clay that contains siliceous shale, of a dozen different minerals, and also sideritic or iron-bearing rock that contains 25% iron. The shale can be used for making tints for wallpaper, and the sideritic material will be used for paint pigments.

Mme. Rosel’s Beauty Shop is having a grand opening at its location at 330 Main Street. The business specializes in Marinell treatments and preparations, electrolytic massage, acne treatment, instantaneous bleach, prismatic ray treatment, hair tinting of every description, eyebrow arching and golden glint shampoo.

A thief entered the home of J. W Parker on Proctor Street and stole a dark blue serge suit, a coat and two pairs of trousers, a shirt, double breasted gray overcoat with a large collar, double-barrel breech-loading shotgun, a dark wooly hat and $70 worth of War Savings stamps. The thief left his old clothes in the basement of the house where he evidently “dressed up” in the stolen goods.

75 YEARS AGO — 1944

Clarence Akin and Lloyd Moore, new proprietors of the Billiard and Lunch Room, formerly operated by Ed Sullivan at 303 West Main Street, will officially open their bowling alleys tomorrow morning. In addition to bowling, the game of duck pins will be offered.

Mrs. James Newell, of Danville brought a very bizarre album to the Advocate-Messenger office. The scrapbook seemed like it was a hobby that was pursued by C. Richter, a former resident of Cincinnati. It contained close to 700 pages of pasted newspaper clippings limited exclusively to those of morbid tragedies. The old volume with the dates of 1904 and 1905 pencilled in at random, was originally a red leather-bound book entitled “Statistischer Beriht von, Ohio, 1879”. Glued over the printed pages were carefully-cut, yellowed newspaper clippings. The reporters who wrote the stories had a veritable field day. Not an adjective was spared in their gleeful “covering” of the chilling crimes and mishaps. The stories included one about a man who dropped dead in church; a man who was buried alive in a clay river bank, the funeral of a man whose casket was too large for the hearse; a man who was shocked to death while killing carp with electricity, and other tales of slayings of fathers by mothers, daughters by their lovers and many items concerning those who “loved wisely but not too well” and were later found at the bottom of creeks, rivers and lakes.

Members of a committee appointed by students of the Ground School recently organized in Danville met with officials to discuss the possible establishment of a Civil Air Patrol Flight in Danville. All persons interested in the project are invited to the next meeting to discuss CAP, which if established here, would be a definite boom to aviation and the community.

50 YEARS AGO — 1969

Since Friday morning workers from the Kentucky Textile Industries and Corning Glass Works have been acting as pickets at the various roads leading into Danville. The pickets are carrying signs protesting the new payroll tax for the city and urging a boycott of the merchants in Danville.

A fire of undetermined origin broke out Friday night in the garage of the Smith-Jackson Funeral Home on Bate Street. The blaze apparently began in a convertible Cadillac, used as a flower car for funerals and was completely destroyed. Also, two Cadillac limousines and one Cadillac hearse were badly damaged, with the paint burned off on all the exterior, and the interior of all three vehicles heavily smoke-damaged. Three adult-size caskets and two caskets for children that were also in the garage were damaged, as was the garage. This was the second fire hitting Smith-Jackson Funeral Home, the last was in November of 1967.

Adults who have less than four years of high school education may go to school again. The Danville Board of Education is offering special basic education classes beginning in September. Anyone 16-and-a-half-years-old or older may start at any level from the first grade to the 10th grade and compete as much education as he wishes, up to high school equivalency. There will be no tuition or charges and all books will be furnished free of charge.

The Danville Library, which since its organization in 1897 has been operated by private means without any assistance from city or county funds, has been renamed the Danville Free Public Library. With the poor financial situation the library has faced for some time, there had been fear of losing it. With the help of Judge Gilbert White, the fiscal court has now included the library in its budget. Until recently, there has always been a small membership fee, but this will no longer be the case.

25 YEARS AGO — 1994

The least expensive way for Boyle County to provide jail service is to build a $4 million 125-bed facility, an architect told the Boyle County Fiscal Court. He said building a larger jail is more cost-effective in the long run because the county would receive income for prisoners from the state and other counties. The present jail has 68 beds and can’t take state prisoners.

Clark’s Run was gently flowing through banks covered with shrubs showing off their late-summer blooms and the creek was sparkling. But there was something wrong — between the trees, along the banks and in the creek was every kind of solid waste imaginable. About a half-mile off of South Second Street the creek was filled with old tires, tubs, tractor transmissions, copper wiring, barbed wire vacuum cleaners and piles of garbage. Mixed in with one large pile of garbage strewn along part of the hillside were syringes, kidney dialysis bags and other used medical instruments and supplies. “It’s one of the worst illegal dumps in the city. And it’s right next to what will be the new city park. We really need to get this area cleaned up once and for all,” said Clean Community Commission Director Donna Fechter.