Thursday, January 23, 2025

Our Town: Southern Pines, Jan. 23, 1925

Our Town

About an hour or so after Mr. Chase secured her copy of the Citizen and in response to the modest request noted therein for a pair of andirons, the Southern Pines Club were owners of the coveted articles. The commendable and speedy action on the part of Mr. Chase is only equaled by the value of an appeal in that Journal.

A pair of North Carolina pottery vases or jars would find a good, warm, comfortable home on the fire place mantel of the Club House.

And a fire screen would keep the sparks within the fire place.

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If a straw vote could be taken the fellow who wrote “It aint gonna rain no more” would carry off all the honors as the modern Ananias.

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While the material progress of our town is best shown in the yearly addition of new buildings, other records help complete the story woven year by year. Second only to this record of new homes is the business of the post office. In outgoing and incoming mail a steady increase has been usual, and the growth of 1924 shows a 20 per cent increase over 1923. Post office figures are generally shown in receipts and the Southern Pines office in the fiscal year June 30, 1912 to June 30, 1913 showed a business of $6,906 and for the same period 1914 and 1915, $7,292. From January 1 to December 31, 1923, the business totaled $16,500 and for the same period in 1924, $20,000. This is a record comparing more than favorably with those of much larger towns in North Carolina, and it must not be forgotten that not so many years ago we reckoned on three cent postage.

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Recent advices inform us that the Jefferson Davis Highway extends from Washington to California and that a portion of it within North Carolina runs from Durham via Oxford, passing through Chapel Hill, Pittsboro, Sanford, Pinehurst and Rockingham. Certainly a portion of this is Route 50, long known as the Capitol Highway, but be this as it may, a granite marker, set in concrete, with a bronze tablet “Jefferson Davis Highway” has been set up on the left hand side of the highway, opposite James Swett’s lots, about half way between the camp ground and Manly.

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Note that the Raleigh township school board has decided to lengthen the school day in the grammar grades from 30 to 45 minutes. The children who have been getting out at 2 o’clock will continue until 2:45; and the first and second grades, which have been dismissed at 1 o’clock, will be dismissed at 1:30. This is on the ground that longer hours are needed to do the work. Oh well, our youngsters are smarter.

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An interesting visitor in our town last week was Mr. Archibald Ray, of Norfolk, Virginia. Mr. Ray is a son of Archibald Ray, long proprietor of ”Ray’s Mill” and a grandson of James Ray, the founder of the mill now a fallen ruin above Ray’s ford at the crossing of the old Peedee road just above the Ray homestead on the new road to Bethesda church. In the Civil War days the “little old mill” was quite a stopping place for teamsters laden with supplies to rest a while and swap yarns.

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A merry hum of the ditch digger resounds through the one time pride of the Sandhills, the old Huttenhauer orchard, as the endless chain of buckets scoop trenches 8 feet deep in the red clay for the sewer and water lines that will soon be in place for the extension of Pennsylvania avenue from Ridge street to Weymouth Road.

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Fire alarm about 8 o’clock Monday morning interrupts breakfast. Fire Compan allset toi go in a jiffy, but telephone is so busy informing “Anxious Inquirer” whereabouts ofalleged fire that Company has to wait—as usual. Fortunately, fire but a small chimney blasé on one of Mr. McHugh’s houses on East Broad street, finds chimney damp, and goes out.

From the front page of the Sandhill Citizen, Southern Pines, Friday, Jan. 23, 1925

newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92061634/1925-01-23/ed-1/seq-1/

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