news-record.com

75 YEARS AGO
From Greensboro Daily News, Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 1936
Two men walking to work in Leaksville on Monday night saw smoke coming out of the house of Joe Ragsdale and quickly woke up the Ragsdales, and their neighbors and called the fire department.

By awakening the neighbors, they kept the fire from being much worse. The neighbors succeeded in removing all the furniture from the house.

This was fortunate because the fire department on arriving was handicapped in fighting the blaze because of frozen pipes. One side of the house was burned before the fire could be put out.

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Mrs. Nattie M. Dodd, 37, of Pomona, was killed and her husband, Walter B. Dodd, 41, was injured when the car in which they were riding overturned on the Reidsville-Greensboro highway right at the Rockingham-Guilford county line.

Mrs. Dodd was crushed beneath the car. Lester Love, driver of the car, was arrested for drunken driving.

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Election of a new board of directors and a talk by Charles M. Ketchum, secretary-manager of the Greensboro Merchants Association, highlighted the annual meeting of the Leaksville-Spray Merchants Association attended by more than 100.

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Reidsville High School was defeated by Grimsley High in Greensboro, 35-21, with the Whirlies building an insurmountable 29-7 lead in the first half.

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Electrical appliance: Electric heater, $4.95

50 YEARS AGO
From Greensboro Daily News, Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 1961
The old J.M. Hester house, at the corner of Scales and Settle streets, is disappearing from the Reidsville scene. It is being razed after standing resolutely at the corner for 63 years. It was built to replace the earlier Crafton house, which burned.

Dr. John M. Hester came to Reidsville from Caswell County in 1887 after graduating from Baltimore College Dental Surgery, and he married the former Minnie Roach in 1890. He and his wife bought the Crafton house.

In 1898, after the Crafton house burned, they built the new house, a frame structure with eight big rooms, four up and four down, plus three bathrooms.

Dr. Hester was mayor pro tem of Reidsville and his son, Dr. John M. Hester Jr., was mayor for 18 years, 1926-44.

Dr. William Hester, a Reidsville surgeon, was born in the Hester home in 1902 and was a member of the Board of Education for 12 years.

A service station will be built on the site of the Hester home.

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The Main Street Messenger, a mimeographed sheet, is now being published by the Main Street Methodist Church and, in its first issue, has articles on the current attendance crusade, a progress report on the church’s new educational building and summary of an upcoming series of evangelistic services March 12-17 with Dr. C.E. Rozelle as guest speaker.

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The Reidsville Golden Lions, their five starters playing the entire game, beat Bessemer High, 56-47, handing the Greensboro team its first Western 3-A Conference defeat and improving Reidsville’s record in conference play to 2-1.

Paul Briggs led all scoring with 24 points.

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Electrical appliance: Knife sharpener, $8.88.

25 YEARS AGO
From Greensboro News & Record, Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 1986
Fieldcrest Mills said it has completed its acquisition of Kannapolis-based Cannon Mills Co.’s bath and bedding operations for $250 million in cash.

The purchase includes Cannon’s towel, sheet, bedding accessory, kitchen-product and rug businesses, and its retail businesses and also involves 12,900 Cannon employees in 12 plants and 14 sales offices.

With the acquisition, Fieldcrest said it will nearly double its sales, employees manufacturing locations. It will retain brand names for all existing Fieldcrest and Cannon product lines.

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The Western Rockingham Board of Education passed a resolution asking for partial funding for a high school that would be built in phases.

The resolution calls for $6 million in bond-generated money to be applied to the first phase of the high school.

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A Madison husband and wife, Larry “Woody” Wilson  and Peggy Wilson, announced their candidacies for Republican nominations for 25th House District seats. They said their dual campaign would allow them to cut the cost of the campaign in half.

They decided to run because western Rockingham and Stokes counties have never had much representation in a district with four seats shared also with Alamance County, said Mrs. Wilson, 40, a nurse with the western Rockingham school district. Her husband is an administrator with that school system.

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The quest for recognition of Eden’s historic buildings are improving, with the Eden Historic Properties Commission hiring a private contractor to prepare nominations.

Pat Dickinson will present nominations for four districts: Spray industrial area, central Leaksville residential district, Leaksville business district and the Boone Road area.

Ruth Little, Raleigh archivist, will prepare a picture book of what was existing in 1984-85 when architectural historian Claudia Roberts did an inventory of Eden’s architecture.

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Electrical appliance: Frigidaire ranges, starting at $298.

10 YEARS AGO
From Greensboro News & Record, Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2001
Spray Cotton Mills, Rockingham County’s oldest employer, will close its Eden plant, leaving 144 people without jobs and ending more than a century of yarn production. The closing was confirmed by four employees leaving the 105-year-old plant, by the local Employment Security office and by a union official who said he received a fax from the company.

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Some 3½ years after a fire started by lightning destroyed Bethlehem United Methodist Church, this small country church has been rebuilt.

The new building cost $1.32 million, half of which the church raised through fundraisers and donations. The insurance on the burned building covered the rest of the cost.

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A Mayodan baseball park destroyed by a March 1998 tornado will reopen this spring and a new park being built across the street on the site of the former Elliott Duncan School should be ready about the same time. The school was damaged by the same tornado.