Days Gone By
100 YEARS AGO, 1924 » The $300,000 fire at the Kent Manufacturing Company’s mill in Clifton Heights Monday night marked the first baptism of the unified fire fighting force of Easter Delaware County under the regime of Fire Marshall Thomas F. Simmons, of Drexel Hill. Within 18 minutes after the telephone operator at the Kent Mills had asked for help, 13 fire fighting units were on the scene, and at one stage so many were on hand that four companies did not get into action.
75 YEARS AGO, 1949 » A heatedlycontested basketball game between Nether Providence and Marple-Newtown high schools Friday night ended in a torrid free-for-all fight, sparked by two partisans who pitched into each other following an argument over scoring in the Marple-Newtown gymnasium. Five policemen from the adjoining township quickly squelched the flare up inside the school, but later fighting broke out again in the street. At one time, witnesses said, more than 30 youthful spectators were involved in the imbroglio. Chief of Police Lester Downs, of Marple Township, Saturday morning characterized the setto as “some pushing and scuffling around.”
50 YEARS AGO, 1974 » Subscribers to the Delaware County Daily Times had their newspapers delivered four hours late Tuesday evening because of a Philadelphia Electric Co. transformer failure — the second in eight days. The presses stopped at 12:17 p.m. when the newspaper plant at 18 E. Eighth St., lost all power. A PECO spokesman said the problem was caused by “a terminal failure on the transformer” located underground near the Boyd Theater at Eight and Welsh streets.
25 YEARS AGO, 1999 » Entry into Media from the north and west became more challenging last week when PennDOT ordered a stretch of Orange Street closed after finding the partial collapse of a stone wall on a bridge. An erosion and deterioration problem under the roadway at Broomall’s Lake forced the closure of Third Street almost three years ago, cutting off another access to the borough.
10 YEARS AGO, 2014 » U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey toured Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades on Thursday as part of a larger effort to reform federal worker training programs. Toomey, a Republican, is part of a bipartisan group of Senators examining ways to reform the 47 government worker training programs that span nine governmental agencies. Toomey is looking for ways to hold those programs accountable. Williamson Free School is not one of those federal programs and does not receive any federal funding. As part of his research, Toomey said he is visiting various worker training programs to see why they are successful.