B2 SATURDAY, JULY 11, 2020 LIFE COMMONWEALTH JOURNAL

non Street and South Central Avenue (was it The Coffee Cup? I can’t recall) and Cherokee Restaurant, a truck stop located where KIA automobile dealership recently vacated on North U.S. 27.

Of course, the Somer-set Police Department, dispatcher for Ken-tucky State Police and Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department, served as a hang-out for night owls.

Most stores in Som-erset during the 1950s and early 1960s offered daytime service. The stores opened between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. and closed around 5 p.m. About two weeks be-fore Christmas, some of the larger stores would stay open until 8 p.m. for Christmas shoppers. All stores, except Dagley’s Market on Ogden Street, were closed on Sundays.

Other happenings of note during the late 1950s:

POLICE CHIEF SHOTSomerset Police Chief

Harold Catron was shot Thursday April 11, 1957 on his front porch by a reported bootlegger. He recovered sufficiently to return to his job for about seven years but died from his injuries Sep 16th, 1964. James G. “Bud” Hines served as acting chief while Chief Catron recovered

from shotgun wounds.ATLANTA

CONTRACTOR TO BUILD GE PLANT

The general contract for construction of Somerset Glass Plant of General Electric Company has been awarded to George A. Fuller Company of Atlanta, Ga. Cost of the entire plant is about $2,500,000.

PLANT TO OPEN AT BURNSIDE

Cumberland Cor-poration’s $3,000,000 wood distillation plant will open at Burnside Thursday, June 6. 1957. Gov. A.B. “Happy” Chandler will present a state flag.

PARKING PROBLEMS IN SOMERSET

A photograph by photographer Jim Slaughter shows cars circling for a parking space around Foun-tain Square. Before Ky. 80 bypass was built, Downtown Somerset was plagued by traffic jams as visitors from the North made their way to Lake Cumber-land.

Lack of downtown parking inhibited businesses and efforts to create off-street parking lots were not successful. The prob-lem seemed to disap-pear when most retail businesses moved to four-lane 27 during the 1960s.

OPERA OFFICIALS INSPECT ISLAND

Officials of the Ken-tucky Opera Associa-tion were here Monday looking over Bunker Hill Island as a possible home for the associa-tion. Bunker Hill Island is now General Burn-side Island State Park.

TELEPHONE USE INCREASING

The market for ad-ditional telephones is expanding rapidly in the Somerset area, according to Hubert Bush, local manager of Southern Continental Telephone Company. With the economy booming and the typi-cal American desire to have the latest and best of everything, it did not take long for tele-phone subscribers to realize how much more convenience additional telephones mean.

THANK YOUI would like to thank

my many friends and customers for their friendship and patron-age of my restaurant –– The Coffee Cup. I have sold The Coffee Cup to W.L. Collins and I am sure he will continue to give you the best in ser-vice and food. Sincere-ly, Arnold E. Vaught.

COMMISSIONER’S SALE

The Peggy Ann Restaurant and Motel, located on south High-way No. 27 about five miles south of Somer-set, Ky. near Lake Cum-berland will be sold on the premises Monday,

June 18, 1957 at the hour of One O’clock Central Standard Time. The property contains a restaurant, well equipped, and a motel with 11 units.

STATE TO FOUR LANE HIGHWAY

The State Highway Department has com-pleted a survey to build a four-lane highway from the intersection of U.S. 27 Truck Route and Highway 80 south to the Pitman Creek Bridge. It was this four laning, completed in 1959, that naysayers said would never be needed between Somer-set and Burnside. The highway was widened to six lanes during the 1990s.

GRANT TO PHONE COMPANY

The Pulaski County Telephone Com-pany has completed a countywide survey and the REA has accepted the company’s applica-tion for a $1,300,000 loan to provide funds to serve the entire rural area of Pulaski County with dial telephones.

So see. Excerpts from 1957 editions of The Somerset Journal show seeds of progress that explain why the Queen City of the Cumberland exploded economically to the mini-metropolis it is today.

PAST: Peggy Ann Restaurant and Motel was sold on June 18, 1957

From Page B1

Today in HistoryToday is Saturday,

July 11, the 193rd day of 2020. There are 173 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wound-ed former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a pistol duel in Wee-hawken, New Jersey. (Hamilton died the next day.)

On this date:In 1533, Pope Clem-

ent VII issued a bull of excommunication against England’s King Henry VIII for the annulment of the king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon and subsequent mar-riage to second wife Anne Boleyn.

In 1798, the U.S. Marine Corps was for-mally re-established by a congressional act that also created the U.S. Marine Band.

In 1859, Big Ben, the great bell inside the famous London clock tower, chimed for the first time.

In 1915, the Chi-cago Sunday Tribune ran an article titled, “Blues Is Jazz and Jazz Is Blues.” (It’s believed to be one of the earliest, if not the earliest, uses of the word “jazz” as a musical term by a newspaper.)

In 1936, New York City’s Triborough Bridge (now officially the Robert F. Ken-nedy Bridge) linking Manhattan, Queens and The Bronx was opened to traffic.

In 1955, the U.S. Air Force Academy swore in its first class of ca-dets at its temporary quarters at Lowry Air Force Base in Colo-rado.

In 1960, the novel “To Kill a Mocking-bird” by Harper Lee was first published by J.B. Lippincott and Co.

In 1972, the World Chess Championship opened as grandmas-ters Bobby Fischer of the United States and defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union began play in Reykjavik, Iceland. (Fischer won after 21 games.)

In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee released volumes of evidence it had gath-

ered in its Watergate inquiry.

In 1979, the aban-doned U.S. space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia.

In 1995, the U.N.-designated “safe haven” of Srebrenica (sreh-breh-NEET’-sah) in Bosnia-Herzegovina fell to Bosnian Serb forces, who then car-ried out the killings of more than 8,000 Mus-lim men and boys. The United States normalized relations with Vietnam.

In 2017, emails released by Donald Trump Jr. revealed that he’d been told before meeting with a Russian attorney during the presiden-tial campaign that the Russian government had information that could “incriminate” Hillary Clinton. MSNBC “Morning Joe” host and former Republican congress-man Joe Scarborough announced that he was leaving the Re-publican party, partly because of its loyalty to President Donald Trump.

Ten years ago: Over the din of vuvuzela horns in Johannes-burg, South Africa, Spain won soccer’s World Cup after an exhausting 1-0 victory in extra time over the Netherlands. The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, founder of Southern California’s Crystal Cathedral mega-church, announced he would retire after 55 years in the pulpit. Paula Creamer won her first major tourna-ment, shooting a final-round 2-under 69 for a 3-under 281 at the U.S. Women’s Open in Oakmont, Pennsyl-vania.

Five years ago: Top Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, escaped from a maximum security prison in Mexico for the second time by exiting through a secretly dug mile-long tunnel (he was recaptured in January 2016 and is serving a life sentence at a supermax prison in Colorado following a conviction on U.S.

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Today in History: U.S. Marine

Corps formally re-established

SEE HISTORY, B4

Today in HistoryToday is Friday, July

10, the 192nd day of 2020. There are 174 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 10, 1940, dur-ing World War II, the Battle of Britain began as the Luftwaffe started attacking southern

England. (The Royal Air Force was ultimately victorious.)

On this date:In 1908, William

Jennings Bryan was nominated for presi-dent by the Democratic national convention in Denver.

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson personally delivered the Treaty of Versailles

(vehr-SY’) to the Senate and urged its ratifica-tion. (However, the Senate rejected it.)

In 1925, jury selection took place in Dayton, Tennessee, in the trial of John T. Scopes, charged with violating the law by teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. (Scopes was convicted and fined, but the verdict was

overturned on a techni-cality.)

In 1951, armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean War began at Kaesong.

In 1973, the Bahamas became fully indepen-dent after three centu-ries of British colonial rule. John Paul Getty III, the teenage grandson of the oil tycoon, was

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Wilson delivers the Treaty of Versailies to the Senate

SEE FRIDAY, B4