Sunday, June 9, 2019

TIME MACHINE: 1990, 1849, 1950's, 1938, 1878.





January, 1990


  Daily Times (Salisbury)



October, 1849



Baltimore Sun
Footnote: Sandy Hill was Stockton's former name. 


February, 1998 (re 1950's)





Somerset Herald


August, 1938





September, 1938


Worcester Democrat article and ads.


December, 1878


The News Journal (Wilmington)





1957..  The Pocomoke City Lions Club makes improvements to a fresh water pond created by gravel excavation for the new Route 13 overpass and opens "Merrill's Beach" just north of town. (After several years of increasing popularity, issues with water safety standards forced its closing.) 

1967..  "The Fugitive" staring David Jannsen as Dr. Richard Kimble is one of the year's popular TV series. 


The Time Machine is a weekly feature I've enjoyed researching and compiling on The Pocomoke Public Eye since 2011.  I have fond memories of growing up in Pocomoke City and welcome reader contributions we can share about things you've read, remember, or were told relating to our Pocomoke/Eastern shore area...a sentence, a paragraph, or more all fine. Just email it.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whatever happened to the airport? That really seemed to go nowhere like so many other things in town.

tk for PPE said...

Anybody know? After this article I found a number of mentions in articles through 1996 regarding feasibility studies, funding, strong support from the county, and the proposed airport's benefit in drawing businesses to the Industrial Park.

Anonymous said...

Ray Sawyer had a 1,300 foot landing strip in Miona and started giving lessons. Fred Fair was one of his students and bought a Cessna 182 and built his own landing strip on Old Virginia Road. He also spent $12,000 for DPL to bury the power lines at the end of his strip plus big bucks to construct a huge aircraft hangar plus more big bucks to install gas pumps for 100LL aviation gas plus 10,000 gallons (the minimum purchase) of said 100LL avgas. Several other local gentlemen got the flying bug and this was considered the "in" thing for several years. As with all fads interest eventually waned but the buried power lines, the huge hangar, the empty gas tank and the overgrown landing strips survive.

The Pocomoke Lions club indeed turned an ugly borrow pit into a community asset and swimming beach. The club hired lifeguards, constructed a refreshment stand and installed and industrial-size pump and water treatment system. The pond may or may not have had water quality issues but the real reason it was closed was because it was open to only Caucasian families the early 1960s were the beginning of the civil rights era and several complaints had been lodged against the whites-only facility.