Each week, the Gazette looks back on stories from the past. Here is what happened this week, by year…
1928
– After 24 years on staff at the Picton post office, Gerald Way was named the town’s new postmaster. Way replaced R. J. Purtelle, who held the position for about four months. Way initially started at the post office fresh out of high school.
– A delegation from the Prince Edward Agricultural Society had an audience with the provincial agriculture minister in Toronto to address some matters of importance to the scociety’s interests.
– Women of all denominations gathered at the Picton United Church for the World Day of Prayer fellowship service for just the second year the event was extended beyond Canada and the U.S. The women heard a speech about Jerusalem.
1948
– The Picton Public Utilities Commission was warning its power users that they’d have to curtail daytime use or see power cut off for two hours a day. Similar measures were already taking place in many rural parts of Ontario to reudce the province’s consumption by 10 per cent.
– Picton engineers recommended that residents each pay $105 for lateral connections to the town’s new sewage system. The money could be financed over 10 years. Users would also pay a $10 annual service fee and a tax levy based on their properties’ assessment values for 20 years.
– Bloomfield council announced it would not hold a plebiscite vote on garbage collection and a fire engine as it had planned.
1978
– Prince Edward County allocated $2,000 annually for the warden to hold a year-end banquet in his honour. Previously, the warden had to pay for the entire expense of the evening out of his own pocket.
– Members of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 78 in Picton were to vote in March about either leaving the Ross-McMullen House or renovating it. It’s building committee had been studying drawings for an addition that would include a banquet hall.
– Ameliasburgh deputy-reeve Paul Boyd charged a Gazette article distorted the facts related to the township’s roads budget and urged council to take action. The township wrote a letter asking its auditor and the story’s author to attend its next meeting.
1998
– Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital would remain open, but it would be one of four hospitals managed by a single corporation, the province’s Health Services Restructuring Commission decided. The move was slated to take place by April 2000. The commission was still studying the services the facility would provide.
– A tractor-trailer loaded with straw from Prince Edward County’s Anderson Farms caught fire on Hwy 401.The vehicle and 12 tonnes of straw were completely destroyed, but no one was injured.
– The Prince Edward County Chamber of Tourism and Commerce was making plans to welcome the Community in Bloom program to the municipality that summer.