This week in Harrisonburg history
Posted by Jeremy Aldrich on November 21st, 2008
1926 – After a spate over who should choose the successor to famed fire chief Al Braithwaite, the City Council removes its city-funded apparatus from Hose Company 4 and Mayor Devier tries to recruit volunteers for a new fire company. Hose Co. 4 insists it’s keeping the building.
1927 – Following a visit by Charles Lindbergh to the area not long after his famous transatlantic flight, local authorities begin planning an airport for Harrisonburg. Hartman Airfield was established 12 years later. The airport was located between what is currently Chicago Ave. and Waterman Drive. Present-day Hartman Drive is the old runway.
1984 – 20 area poultry workers fall ill with psittacosis, a bacterial disease with symptoms like pneumonia.
1997 – On November 21, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 7,881.07.
Nice. I like this.
This week in Harrisonburg history should be a weekly feature.
Yeah, people dig this stuff. Our little hindsight column — which merely reviews the previous month — is one of eightyone’s most popular features. If you can have a little respectful ‘tude going with it, so much the better.
That’s some great trivia about Hartman Drive. Hard to imagine what hburg looked like when planes could land between Waterman and Chicago!
Really neat tidbits of local history. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, linz!
I wanted to see where it was at since Waterman is close to where I live now – here’s the Google Map
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=waterman+dr.+harrisonburg&sll=38.45183,-78.89864&sspn=0.008587,0.019312&ie=UTF8&ll=38.454294,-78.878016&spn=0.008587,0.019312&t=h&z=16
Wow, this is extremely cool. That airport bit fascinates me. Thanks, Jeremy. Please keep this up.