West Jefferson in Days Gone By - series 123 by Charlie Miller
____Items appearing in The West Jefferson Star:
____January 26, 1928 – A beacon light is to be built near West Jefferson for an emergency landing field for the government aircraft mail and, etc. The beacon will be 89’ high. (This beacon sat along Rt. 29 across the road from Jefferson Industries. I don’t know when it was taken down, but I can remember it when I was a kid.)
____February 23, 1928 – Plans are being made to make Federal Route 40 a four-land highway through Ohio. (The first segment was completed from Columbus to West Jefferson around 1940.)
____April 12, 1928 – Land has been leased from Riddle R. Sidner two miles south of town along Lilly Chapel Road for use as an airfield. (This was more of an emergency airfield. During WWII, a fighter plane crashed at this airfield. I rode my bicycle out to see the wreckage.)
____April 19, 1928 – A Greyhound race track is to be built on the farm leased from Antony Frey. It will have a grandstand with a capacity of 5,000. Work will start on June 30th. (This track sat on the western end of Fellows Ave. and now contains the Merriman Addition.)
____May 10, 1928 – Ray Miller, Frank Kaufman, and Robert Boyd are the incorporators of the High-Grade Milk Co. (A 1938 High-Grade Milk Co. picture can be seen on Google after it had moved to Columbus.)
____May 10, 1928 - The Farmer’s Co-Op Cream Station, run by Lem Gregg, has moved to the brick building in the back of Town Hall. (It sat on the northeast corner of Walnut and Town Streets.)
____June 1, 1928 – A new drug store owned and operated by Merrill H. Mellott, has opened. (The building is the current site of Dr. Garwood. It’s the same building but has been remodeled.)
____July 4, 1928 – The Greyhound races opened today with a crowd of 7,500 in attendance.
____July 8, 1928 – An old prominent citizen, Henry Brown, 74, dies.
____July 12, 1928 – Work has started on the new village sewage disposal plant.
____August 30, 1928 – Another old settler passes away. Luther Johnson, father of Frank, Howard and Walter Johnson, dies.
____October 18, 1928 – The new beacon light on Lilly Chapel Road is now in operation.