Editor’s note — We’re continuing our tradition of taking a look back each Saturday at some of the important, interesting or even odd events as they were reported during the same week throughout the years, along with interesting advertising features from back in the day.
This week in 1881, the Hillsboro Gazette reported a gang of “moral reformers” called “the Tads” bombed a tavern in Greenfield frequented by ladies of the night.
Shelby, Pullman & Hamilton’s “Grand United Mastodon Menagerie and Circus” was coming to Hillsboro, featuring what they called a “marvelous arctic aquarium, a mammoth museum of 20,000 curiosities, a school of wondrous mechanism, and exposition of musical automata,” and the feature attraction, “Zazel, the human cannonball.”
“The Great German Remedy for Rheumatism” — something that was affecting all Highland Countians, the advertisement said — was touted as being treatable by using St. Jacob’s Oil.
Hillsboro’s local “headquarters for buggies, carriages, phaetons and jaggers” was a shop known as Glascock & Quinn, two doors down from the bank on Main St. (Phaetons were light, open four-wheeled carriages and jaggers is an old English term for pack horses)
In one local brief, the paper said that Ed Morgan, a clerk at Billy Loyd’s grocery, had in recent days developed “a grin that reaches clear across his face,” due to the birth of his new 13-pound baby girl.
This week in 1930, the Hillsboro News-Herald reported two houses and four barns burned east of Rainsboro after one of the roofs took a lightning strike. The loss was estimated at $4,000 or more.
With Prohibition in full swing, a pair of lascivious liquor lechers were fined for possession of spirits after being arrested with bootleg alcohol near Lynchburg. One of the drunken defendants was unable to pay the fine, and spent the weekend in the county hoosegow.
“McCoppin-made flour,” direct for the old McCoppin’s Mill on Rocky Fork Creek, was available at Strain’s grocery for 65 cents per 24.5-pound bag, and for those that like to “roll their own,” Star Tobacco was 12.5 cents per cut.
Six abandoned buildings owned by the Hillsboro Board of Education – Heads College, Ervin School, Persimmon Ridge, Boyle School, Oak Grove School and Glenn School – were sold to several buyers at a “very cheap” rate, garnering a total of $1,346 — nearly $20,000 in 2019 dollars.
A Greenfield attorney lost his license to practice law for one year after being charged with filing a false mortgage, engaging in bribes and preparing false affidavits.
Caldwell’s advertised women’s hose for 25 cents, sun suits for 19 cents, sport dresses for $1.79 and face powder for 10 cents.
This week in 1948, the Hillsboro News-Herald had the headline, “Car Hits Train, Not Vice Versa,” and explained how an accident involving a local insurance salesman “did not knock a B&O freight train off the track late Tuesday — but he made a stab at it.” The driver was uninjured.
In another auto mishap, a South Salem man got his truck stuck in a creek bed near Greenfield, and it was promptly washed away by a flash flood. The driver was uninjured but his cargo of eggs and cans of cream went down the creek with the truck.
A street cop witnessed a Dayton man running a red light in Hillsboro and got fined a “fin.” (A $5 bill)
A Schaefer’s Supermarket advertisement offered fresh ground hamburger was a bargain at just 55 cents per pound at Schaefer’s Supermarket in Hillsboro, with smoked picnic hams at 53 cents per pound, bologna for 35 cents per pound and pure bulk lard, the “secret ingredient” in Grandma’s baking, was just 27 cents per pound.
The county recorder did “considerable business” in the previous year, filing a total of 1,913 deeds from June of 1947 to June 1948.
William Elliott and Vera Ralston starred in the movie “Wyoming,” showing over the weekend at The Colony Theatre.
This week in 1972, the News-Herald reported a Greenfield man became trapped for some time in his own truck after he struck the side of Bob’s Super Valu supermarket in an alley, causing high-voltage lines to come down onto his vehicle.
A front page photo showed Mr. and Mrs. Tom Wilkin and their children, Cindy and Terry, dressed up as pioneers. The family were members of the Highland County Muzzle Loading Club.
Nearly 56,000 people visited Rocky Fork Lake over the weekend, with a picture of one little girl from Buford holding up a stringer of blue gill and crappie that she caught.
About 1,300 farmers in Highland County received farm set-aside program payments totaling $1.25 million. The payments were made by the government for farmers who agreed to set aside part of their land from production in order to meet a national objective of balancing supply and demand.
This week in 2005, The Times-Gazette reported state officials were planning to do radiation testing at Big Run Stream near Piketon, where the uranium enrichment plant was based.
Hillsboro was a stop on the Across Ohio Bicycle Adventure route, which tracked 400 miles from Oregon, Ohio in Lucas County near Toledo to Manchester, on the Ohio River in Adams County.
The Highland County Emergency Management Agency drafted a hazard mitigation plan, which laid out the county’s plan of action in the event of a range of natural disasters.
In sports, the Hillsboro Pony Express bounced back for an 8-1 win against the Chillicothe Babe Ruth in the 15-and-under division of the Tournament of Champions at Shaffer Park.
A six-week summer youth program sponsored by the Turning Point Applied Learning Center and the City of Hillsboro gave local teens an opportunity to work in a variety of roles around the community.
A local soldier, who lost his lower right leg when an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) exploded near his Hummer while on patrol in Samarra, Iraq, was given a new laptop computer by Coalition to Salute American Heroes. The organization gave it to Terry Dean to assist him in his college work after his discharge from the Ohio National Guard.
Reach Tim Colliver at 937-402-2571
