Turning back the pages

100 years ago — August 1921

SALISBURY — Lester Hoysradt recently took a load of young ladies accompanied by the Rev. and Mrs. C.S. McClellan and Charles Coons Jr. to Norfolk for the purpose of blueberrying. They had great success, filling pails and baskets and had an enjoyable time generally.

LAKEVILLE — Master Wesley Welch, who two weeks ago was injured when run down by a passing auto while on his wheel, entered Sharon Hospital Sunday for further treatment.

50 years ago — August 1971

CANAAN — Becton-Dickinson in Canaan held an open house at its big plant south of town this Saturday to mark its 10th year in the area. Nearly 1,500 employees, family members and guests and corporate executives participated in the tour and outdoor entertainment.

— North Canaan’s population doubled for a brief time Sunday when a crowd estimated at 3,000 persons gathered for the second Canaan Valley Sporting Club country music festival. 

— Back in 1871 the Pine Grove Association was established, and next weekend, Aug. 28 and 29, a centennial observance will be held at the summer colony off Belden Street just below the Canaan-North Canaan town line.

25 years ago — August 1996

The Lakeville Journal this week enters its 100th year. Behind glass in the Journal’s lobby on Bissell Street are the yellowed pages — all four of them — of Volume 1, No. 1, published Saturday, Aug. 14, 1897. That makes today’s issue Volume 100, No. 1. Colvin — known as Col — Card was the founding publisher. The editor was I.J. Keyes.

— Earlier this year singer/songwriter and Cornwall landowner James Taylor applied for a special permit to mine gravel along the banks of the Housatonic River. The idea was to use his celebrity and his scenic and very visible property to highlight untoward aspects of gravel mining and to block neighbor Jacqueline Strobel’s effort to mine an abandoned four-acre gravel pit to the south. That was then. This is now. Taylor won by losing. The Planning and Zoning Commission turned Taylor down this spring. It also turned down the Strobel application. And now Taylor, his manager Peter Stiglin who owns a strip of land between Taylor’s and Strobel’s holdings, and their attorney Leonard Blum are petitioning the commission to end gravel mining in Cornwall’s industrial-residential zone.