100 Years Ago
In 1912, at noon the previous day as Mrs. F.L. Hall sat in a light wagon holding the reins of the team in front of a West State Street store, in Olean, while Mr. Hall was inside, one of the horses caught its bridle and pulled it from its head. A bystander seized the excited horse by the nose and called to Mrs. Hall to jump from the wagon, which she did. The man then released his hold and the team raced away down the hill for about two blocks until between Third and Fourth streets they collided with an electric light pole and went down. Fortunately no one was injured but one of the horses was so badly hurt it was found necessary to put it down.
At 8 p.m. there would be a practice meeting of the members of the class in first aid to the injured in the YWCA in charge of Dr. Jane L. Greeley. This would be the last opportunity for the members of the class to prepare for the examination which would be held soon and all should be prepared. The class was the first of the kind to be conducted in Jamestown and it attracted many and proved valuable and interesting. There was already considerable demand for a repetition of the course after the holidays and arrangements might be made to that effect.
75 Years Ago
In 1937, the junior class of Jamestown High School presented "One Mad Night," in the high school auditorium Friday evening. It was. From the opening curtain of the three-act mystery farce to the smashing final scene, the play "rolled on" at express-train speed while the capacity audience revealed interchanging emotions of mirth and nerve tingling anxiety. The production served to "pry the lid off" the school's dramatic season for the year in a most appropriate manner.
Despite a protest, members of the senior class of Jamestown High School decided to restrict attendance at the class party to members of the class. The previous year, both the junior class and the seniors voted "open" parties to vary the custom of many years standing. Both affairs were heralded as highly successful at the time. The ruling adopted Friday prohibited class members from bringing or being accompanied by anyone except another senior.
50 Years Ago
In 1962, a huge, four-engine airplane abandoned by its crew in the sky over Central New York state continued to fly on its own across the state into Canada and apparently came down in Labrador - more than 1,000 miles away. An official at Plattsburg Air Force Base said that, in his experience, the pilotless flight of the KC-97 Air Force tanker was unprecedented. According to the Air Force, the plane was in flames when its 10-man crew placed the controls on automatic pilot and bailed out over Watkins Glen Monday night. Yet, when a Royal Canadian Air Force fighter intercepted the tanker north of Montreal, the fighter pilot saw no flames. One of the crewmen lost his life in the bailout. The others escaped serious injury.
Weather continued to dominate the area and conversation as the storm moved into its seventh day. And winter didn't officially begin until 3:15 a.m. Dec. 22. Slippery roads and poor visibility caused at least two accidents in the county the previous day. The Chautauqua County Highway Department reported that the weather had reversed this day and was belting the southern part of the county. City, village, town, county and state maintenance crews had been attempting to keep roads open on a round the clock schedule.
25 Years Ago
In 1987, through the use of books - not guns - U.S. Rep. Amory Houghton Jr., R-Corning, planned to fight communism in Nicaragua. His plan included traveling to Nicaragua with area college presidents in January and bringing back eight Nicaraguan students for an education in the 34th Congressional District. "It's a non-violent attempt for us to be friends," Houghton said. "It looks to the future."
Chautauqua County Health Director Robert Berke insisted the medical community was responsible for some of the hysteria surrounding AIDS. The media was also to blame, he said. "Things are happening in my medical community that are absurd," Berke said. He listed the availability of anonymous testing as one of those absurdities. While there were exams to determine if a person had AIDS or was an AIDS carrier, Berke said no one was allowed to know who those people were. That was not true of any other communicable disease. "Why make this disease so different?" Berke asked.