The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

The way we were

Clips from Mountain Eagle front pages over the past 60 years


Jan. 8, 1953

Mrs. Cora Reynolds Frazier, Whitesburg school teacher and widow of Troy W. Frazier, announced her candidacy for the Republican ticket for Letcher County Court Clerk. In announcing her candidacy, Mrs. Frazier said she has received encouragement from friends who want her to seek the office her late husband held for a few months in 1950 before a recount of ballots required him to relinquish it to present County Court Clerk Charlie Wright.

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Local Draft Board 58, Whitesburg, has called 80 Letcher County men to report for induction to the armed forces or for re-examination next week. Most of the 80 youths are named in a re-examination call that lists 58 men to report to the Local Board Monday, January 14. The remaining 22 will report for induction January 14.

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Whitesburg’s Kentucky Hotel, also known as the Marcum Hotel, will be up for sale Saturday morning (January 17) at 10 o’clock when the Sam Collins Land Auction Company will conduct an absolute auction on the premises. The hotel is located on the corner of Main and Madison Streets across from the L&N depot.

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The Whitesburg Funeral Home, located on Webb Avenue, this week closed its doors after being in business in the city for eight months. Reason for the closing was given as lack of a licensed mortician. The funeral home opened in May 1952 in the old Jim Frazier store building.

Jan. 10, 1963

The Miners Memorial Hospital Association put a price of $2,115,000 on the Whitesburg Memorial Hospital, which it is trying to sell. The hospital is one of four which the association said it will close if a buyer doesn’t appear by July 1. The association says the reason is the reduction in the number of beneficiaries from the United Mine Workers of America Welfare Fund. The hospitals were opened six years ago to bring quality health care to miners and their families.

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Austin Napier and James Kenneth Caudill, students at Whitesburg High School, are winners of the annual Soil Conservation Service Essay Contest.

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Letcher County has the potential for developing into a major egg production center, according to an official in one of the state’s largest egg production and distribution centers.

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The Jenkins Public Library is sponsoring a discussion class on southern Appalachian literature, led by the Rev. Charles Hansel of Haymond.

Jan. 11, 1973

The Appalachian Regional Commission has hired a consultant to “provide expert advice and assistance” to its black lung program for $469.52 a day.

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Coal truckers hauling overweight loads over Kentucky roads are now required to post bond and pay for road damage.

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Lois Baker of Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation says the organization plans to build a medical clinic on the site of the old union hall in McRoberts. It is scheduled to open in September.

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Members of the United Mine Workers Union have elected Arnold Miller of West Virginia to be their new president.

Jan. 13, 1983

Golden Oak Mining’s new processing plant at the mouth of Camp Branch was lighting up the night sky when Eagle photographer Craig Warzon took a photo showing all the lights.

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The Letcher County school board ordered Supt. Jack M. Burkich to release a tape recording of the board’s November meeting to county schoolteacher Atwell Turner, president of the Letcher County Teachers Association, who asked to hear it.

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Att. F. Byrd Hogg of Whitesburg announced his candidacy for re-election to the office of Letcher Circuit Judge.

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The City of Whitesburg is looking for a new city hall. Three members of the city council — Joanne Collins, Don Childers and James A. Craft — were named to seek a new site for city hall.

Jan. 13, 1993

The families of three dead coal miners are protesting the decision of state and federal officials to permit mining industry officials to sit in on the investigation of the deaths of the three men but to exclude miners’ representatives. The men and five other miners died Dec. 7 in an explosion at Southmountain Coal Co. near Norton, Va. Attorney Tony Oppegard of the nonprofit Mine Safety Project said the miners’ family members believe the presence of company officials will intimidate employees and thus will prevent the Mine Safety and Health Administration from uncovering all the facts about the disaster.

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The Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Board has revoked South East Coal Co.’s insurance, forcing the company to idle its 330 workers. The action took place after a bankruptcy court approved a plan that would relieve the firm of liability for past workers’ compensation and black lung claims.

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A five-year-old Letcher County boy who got his arm caught in a school bus door and was dragged nearly twotenths of a mile outside the bus made it through the incident without suffering a serious injury. The incident occurred as Jeremy Dwight Collins tried to board the bus for a short ride to Cowan School.

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Members of the United Mine Workers of America are preparing to strike as talks have stalled.

Jan. 15, 2003

Letcher County’s fight with the gas and oil industry continued last week when a well service company hauling heavy equipment destroyed a newly paved road at Montgomery Creek, and a drilling company salted the dirt road at Bull Creek.

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Construction is scheduled to begin this spring on a $2.1 million addition to Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation’s Whitesburg Medical Clinic.

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Letcher County’s new fiscal court approved the first reading of a flood insurance ordinance, voted not to pay legal expenses for a former magistrate, agreed to begin door-to-door recycling as soon as possible, and gave itself a cost-of-living raise — all at its first meeting.

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The Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg took out ads last week in The New York Times and other national newspapers urging CBS to drop its plans for “The Real Beverly Hillbillies”, which network executives said would place a poor, multi-generational rural family in a mansion in Beverly Hills with 24-hour cameras.



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