Looking Back

Posted May 3, 2012 By Compiled by: Stacey Roy

100 YEARS AGO - MAY 2, 1912

A little girl at the Central School was taken home in a state of collapse the other day from too much skipping the rope. She made a record of 502 skips and fell on the pavement in a faint.

The C.P.R. will build a station just west of the village of Elgin.

Mr. George Keith has withdrawn from the business of Foster & Co which will be continued by Mayor Foster. Mr. Keith has no plans for the immediate future except to go fishing.

50 YEARS AGO - MAY 3, 1962

War is about to be declared in Smiths Falls - or so it would appear from the variety of military which will soon be making its appearance here. Recently it was announced that the RCAF Association had purchased a retired Harvard trainer aircraft which is to be mounted on the roof of the Abbott street headquarters building. Not to be out done, Lieutenant G.O. Hobbs of the Fourth Princess Louise Dragoon Guards told The Record-News on Tuesday that his unit will soon acquire four Sherman tanks for training purposes.

Some residents living in the north end of Smiths Falls have expressed fears that dust falling in the area from the silica sandstone mine near the S-curve on Highway 29, may eventually cause an outbreak of silicosis. This concern is supported to some extent by medical men who agree that silica dust in large quantities over a period of time can cause death.

25 YEARS AGO - MAY 6, 1987

Miss Smiths Falls struck a victory for small people Saturday night in Perth. Sherry Turcotte won the title of Miss Eastern Ontario at the 33rd annual pageant at Perth and District Collegiate Institute.

Jack Anderson representing a growing number of Smiths Falls residents against the establishment of a proposed young offenders home, voiced concerns to council Monday night. Mr. Anderson and a group of George Street North area residents organized a group recently to object to the establishment of a young offenders home in their neighbourhood.

Town council voted seven to two in favour of rezoning the former Ketchum property to allow construction of garden homes at its regular council meeting Monday night. With the rezoning, property owner Bill Murphy said he is interested in proceeding immediately with the construction of nine townhouses on the property fronting Elmsley Street near Chambers.

10 YEARS AGO - MAY 1, 2002

No tax rate increase for a third year running. And in the case of industrial ratepayers, there's even a little reduction. Those were the key messages delivered Monday as Smiths Falls council gave third and final reading to the 2002 municipal budget. The $25.98 million budget actually estimates the town's expenditures will drop in 2002 compared to the previous year, newly-appointed acting corporate services director Wayne Brown said. Much of that, he says, is due to the use of the proceeds from the sale of Smiths Falls Hydro to pay down close to $3 million worth of long-term debt.

Enough is enough, says Keith Berry after the latest engineering study on the state of SFDCI is released to the public.The spokesman for the Smiths Falls Community Committee for a New High School told committee members Thursday (April 25) that a structural building assessment performed last summer shows $11.3 million would have to be spent to bring the old high school up to standard. The study was performed by Roney Engineering of Kingston on behalf of the Upper Canada District School Board. The board has had the report in its possession since October, and Berry says it took the Access To Information Act and the passing of several months before his group received a copy.