Turning Back The Pages

100 years ago — 1921

SALISBURY — E.R. Smith and family and William Bannahan motored to New Haven on Tuesday to attend the auction of used autos.

— J. Kimmerle is building a cellar under the recent addition to his store building.

— Grandma Ashman is visiting at Mrs. Clifford Bloomer’s in Taconic.

— The state tax of one cent a gallon on gasoline goes into effect today. The tax is laid on the wholesaler, who will promptly pass it on to the consumer. The proceeds are supposed to be applied to the cost of building and maintaining highways, and just at present Salisbury is badly in need of a large slice of it.

Found: Aug. 30th on the Undermountain Road between Sheffield and Taconic, black fur boa. Owner may secure same by describing property. Phone 95

50 years ago — 1971

Kent firemen freed a Wingdale, N.Y., youth, Kenneth Dingee, trapped in the rapids of the Housatonic River north of Kent’s covered bridge on Tuesday. The young man’s rubber raft overturned and his leg was caught between submerged logs. Firemen and state police managed to free Dingee at about 6:15 p.m. He was rushed by ambulance to New Milford Hospital, where he was treated for exposure, cuts and bruises and a possible leg fracture. His brother-in-law, Gary Haviland, managed to escape the rapids after the raft overturned and summoned help from a nearby garage.

— Recent severe storms which roiled the Lakeville reservoir were given Wednesday as the cause of the brown tap water which has caused several complaints. Ed Kipp, local manager of the Lakeville Water Co., said the water is “perfectly all right” and the reservoir is again clear.

— The Penn Central Transportation Company wants $35,000 for its century-old Canaan Depot, and the North Canaan Railroad Depot Committee thinks the town should pay that price. Depot committee chairman Robert Loesch told the Lakeville Journal Tuesday night that committee members were unanimous in agreeing to recommend the $35,000 price as “a very fair one.”

— Mrs. Warren Blass of Falls Village has recently returned home after visiting her son Steve in Pittsburgh. Steve is a star pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and while in town his mother attended four games, including a father-son match between the Pirates and their offspring. The boys won 27-0 despite Steve’s exceptional pitching.

25 years ago — 1996

FALLS VILLAGE — Lee Kellogg Elementary School opens this year with 146 students, about as many as last year. And this school opens with a fresh coat of exterior paint, a minor renovation in the administration office and a contract with a Danbury firm to replace part of the roof.

— The identity of an artist who dropped a 10-pointed steel star on state ground in Cornwall Bridge last month remains a mystery. A number of local sculptors have looked at the 200-pound piece painted perfectly in a bluish silver, claimed it is not their work and claimed it is not the work of anybody they know.

These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible.