100 Years Ago
In 1912, President William Howard Taft reached Jamestown as scheduled, shortly after 9 a.m. His special train was pulled into the depot yards just west of the passenger platform and the president was introduced without preliminaries by Judge Jerome B. Fisher. President Taft spoke for nearly 10 minutes, taking up three important topics, the present prosperity of the United States, the necessity for international peace and the movement for the extension of the cooperative system of farm finance which was in use in Europe. He wished to bring this system to the U.S. as a means for increasing the volume of farm products and reducing the high cost of living. He was listened to by a crowd which filled every available nook and corner of the yards.
Job E. Hedges, the Republican candidate for governor, addressed a large and appreciative audience at the Samuels Theater in Jamestown Friday evening. The meeting was the climax of a strenuous day's campaigning. It was a fitting climax. It was the largest and best meeting of the day. Mr. Hedges and those who accompanied him were much pleased with the demonstration. Mr. Hedges speech was an elaborate amplification of the short addresses which he delivered throughout the day. He spoke at Forestville, at Brocton, at Westfield, at Mayville, at Chautauqua and at Ashville.
75 Years Ago
In 1937, the first of a series of several similar suits for damages as the result of the death of seven persons and serious injuries to many others, in the disastrous gasoline tank fire at the Richfield station on Fluvanna Avenue on June 18, 1934, was scheduled for trial in Supreme Court at Mayville in November. Mrs. Gertrude C. Anderson, widow of Harold D. Anderson, one of the four firemen fatally injured in the fire, represented by William J. Brock, Buffalo, was the plaintiff in a $100,000 action brought against the Richfield Oil Corporation; the Superior Oil Works; James J. Joy, station manager and Carl R. Nelson, owner of the land.
The community chest brimmed over its quota of $75,650 by $39.09 and red feathers, insignia of donors to the chest, perched proudly on 13,029 hats, when the week's drive closed Monday evening at the Hotel Jamestown after the 18th annual campaign. Cheers cut the air and the assemblage burst into singing, Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow, as the support of Jamestown's 12 charitable and welfare agencies was insured for another year.
50 Years Ago
In 1962, recognition for 148,000 miles of injury-free operation by the bus fleet of Southwestern Central Schools in the previous year was symbolized in an award received by the district board of education. On behalf of the State Department of Education, Mrs. Ruth Winch, superintendent for Chautauqua County's District 1, presented the Southwestern board a pupil transportation safety certificate.
Detectives were continuing to search for clues in a reported robbery following the discovery of a gift shop operator lying unconscious in a back room of The Wishing Well, 209 E. Third St., Jamestown. John J. Wedemeyer, 53, was found lying in a small back room of the shop. He was taken to WCA Hospital where his condition was reported as "fairly good." Mr. Wedemeyer regained consciousness and was questioned by detectives. He said he had been working at a table in the back room when he heard someone entering the store. As he arose to wait on the customer, he saw something coming toward him and he blacked out. A total of $230 was apparently missing from the store.
25 Years Ago
In 1987, on this morning, for the first time in nearly 100 years, there was no sign of Bigelow's Department Store in Jamestown. Sunday morning Jack and Eva Olmsted, owners of Peterson Signs, and employee Rick Hartman, began taking down the last Bigelow's sign, the one facing Third Street. The project blocked off Third Street and took until after 4 p.m. as the well-known script letters were removed one letter at a time and piled on the sidewalk in front of what would be the new Argersinger's Department Store.
Residents along Goose Creek in the town of North Harmony were still looking for help with flooding problems they had been experiencing for years. The problem, according to North Harmony Town Supervisor Leon T. Radaker, was that brush and logs in the creek impeded the flow of water and caused it to back up after heavy rains. The stream meandered through flat, soft land that eroded easily. To solve the problem, Radaker said, the creek would have to be straightened. But the town of North Harmony did not have funds for the creek work, he said.