This Week in History
10 years ago:
Twin Valley officials called a “game” by high school students “dangerous and sadistic.” According to the vice principal, the game was called “bag tag,” and consisted of “a quick hit, kick, or flick in the testicle area.” As board members pondered the possible attraction of the “game,” the vice principal added “Sometimes you’ll come around a corner and see a kid doubled over on the floor. And when you ask what’s going on, they all say ‘nothing.’”
Mount Snow finished off its first season after it was purchased by Peak Resorts. During the season, the company installed more than 100 new “fan guns,” which proved to be more energy efficient and improved snow output per gallon of water. Tim Boyd, the owner of Peak Resorts, said the company planned to install 150 more fan guns at a cost of nearly $5 million. The company also planned to spruce the place up with new paint on chair lifts, improved locker rooms, and upgrades at Mount Snow Golf Course.
15 years ago:
The Whitingham School Board appointed Marilyn Williams as the interim principal following the resignation of principal Jurg Jenzer. Williams was teaching math at Greenfield High School at the time, but she was familiar to many as Wilmington High School’s Dean of Students from 2000 to 2002. Williams was familiar with the (then) ongoing joint school negotiations between the Whitingham and Wilmington school districts, and would later lead the school through the transition from Whitingham School to Whitingham Elementary/Twin Valley Middle School.
After studying a dozen potential sites such as the Howe Farm on Route 100 and the former Christmas Barn on Route 9, the Deerfield Valley Transit Association was ready to announce their top four choices for the new home of the MOOver. The old barnboard factory on Mill Street was considered a contender for the top choice.
20 years ago:
The Lakefront building at the oxbow on Route 9 was torn down. Owners Wendy and Mark Pedersen planned to build a lighthouse on the site. The light-house would be a replica of the Three Sisters of Nauset, a lighthouse built in 1892 on Cape Cod to replace an earlier structure. Original plans called for illuminating the lighthouse. The Lakefront building, built in 1964, had been a restaurant for many years, but had fallen into a state of disrepair.
The end of an era was at hand as the Wilmington Zoning Board of Appeals prepared to hear a conditional use application for a convenience store and gas station to be built on the site of Gene’s Kree Mee. The 1950s-style ice cream and fast food drive-in was a valley institution.
25 years ago:
The Wilmington Selectboard balked at a request from the water district for a three-month ban on parking along both sides of Main Street, while a Brattleboro company replaced waterlines in the downtown area. Noting that they had already received complaints about the project, which wasn’t scheduled to begin for another week, board members approved a 30-day temporary parking ban, and told water district representatives to come back to the table if they needed more time.
Readsboro’s American Legion Post and Ladies Auxiliary boasted more than 250 members.
35 years ago:
According to the Vermont Planning Office and Data Center, 68,055 people moved to Vermont between 1975 to 1980. Of those, 13,791 moved to Vermont from New York, 11,675 were from Massachusetts, 7,141 moved from Connecticut, 6,231 were from New Hampshire, and 4,725 were from Jew Jersey.
During the same period, more than 60,000 people left the state, including 7,815 who moved to New York, 7,369 who moved to New Hampshire, 7,322 who moved to Massachusetts, and 3,355 who moved to Florida.
40 years ago:
Wilmington Police Chief Andrew Thomson advised local residents to remove their keys and lock the doors when parking their vehicles overnight after two cars were stolen “by kids just looking for something to do.”
“Yesterday’s junk is tomorrow’s antiques,” said auctioneer Dominic Sabia, of Shelburne Falls, MA. Sabia ran an auction barn and flea market on Route 100 in Jacksonville for 13 years. Sabia said the buyers at his weekly auctions came from as far away as New York and Connecticut.
45 years ago:
In his regular column, Dover Town Manager Jim Laseter wrote that the town had established “a new and exciting division of municipal government, Rumor Control Central.” Laseter addressed several rumors, including a story that the entire Dover Highway Department was vacationing in Florida.
50 years ago:
Al Wurzberger, owner of the 1836 Country Store, planned to restore the adjacent Norton House and open it as a museum of early American life. Plans included the renovation of five rooms on two floors, including a large kitchen. The house, one of the oldest in Wilmington, was built in the 1770s and originally located in the old village on Lisle Hill. It was moved to its present location in 1836. The planned museum would depict life in Vermont during the 1800s.
