June 23, 1925

Staff

Published Saturday, June 22, 2002

The lead story in the Suffolk News-Herald 77 years ago:

Chamber of Commerce backs movement for county water mains

Suffolk Chamber of Commerce backs a move to get the Nansemond County Board of Supervisors to extend the county water mains to the property adjacent to the city limits to afford residents improved fire protection.

The board of directors in session last night voted to refer the matter to the county co-operation committee of which J.G. Eberwine is chairman. The mains should be placed in these sections into which paved roads run, the board felt.

R.I. Woodward Jr., was selected as a delegate to the statewide meeting in Charlottesville on June 29, which has been called for the purpose of getting increased interest in the Shenandoah National Park site. He will leave this week to attend the sessions.

Health Department will lower water level in city lake

Dr. W.H. Newcomb announced today that he had secured the permission of the city of Portsmouth to proceed with the lowering of the level of Lake Cohoon, and would do so in spite of the fact that a petition has been circulated and signed which asks that the level not be disturbed.

He declared that he had information that the opposition to the lowering was due to the activities of one person who was interested financially in the lake. He gave as the purpose of the lowering of the water level treatment of it to avoid the spread of malaria and typhoid fever.

Dr. Newcomb told a representative of The News that his sole idea in lowering the level was to kill the breading of a hurtful breed of mosquitoes, which would spread disease. He felt that those who signed the petition did so without realizing that the health board was going to lower the lake for his good, and not that one-cent of financial benefit would come to him or those on his staff.

K.K.K. leader denies planting, burning fiery Cross last night

W.W. Ford, field worker for the National K.K.K., who has an office in Suffolk, issued a statement today in which he declared that the burning of the fiery cross last night was not the work of the Klan but was done by the "hands of the enemy." He went further than that and asserted that the persons responsible for an article dealing with his appearance before the city council caused the cross to be burned last night.

Mr. Ford stated that he was out of the city and his secretary in Windsor. He expressed his indignation at the occurrence and felt it was done to make persons "hate the order," referring to the K.K.K.

Burning of a six-foot fiery cross last night at Washington and Main streets, the busiest part of Suffolk, by unidentified persons provided a subject for conversation throughout Suffolk today. It was set on fire about 9:30 o'clock as hundreds were on the streets by men who brought it to the scene of the burning in an automobile and then leaped out of the car and struck matches igniting it.

Echoes of hailstorm come from Gates County

Echoes of the disaster to farmers in all of the counties of Virginia and North Carolina struck by the destructive hailstorm Sunday afternoon still pour in. Instead of Gates County escaping the disaster it was struck as hard a blow almost as Nansemond and Southampton. N.H. Norfleet, of Suffolk, passed through the devastation region of Gates yesterday and says that a stretch of land about eight miles wide extending southwest from Gates station is apparently swept clean of every vestige of growing crops. He thinks the hail cut its way through has far south as Edenton.

Farmers show profits on major crops last year

The average cost last year of producing wheat on 4,616 farms distributed fairly well over the country was $1.38 per bushel, compared with an average sale value of $1.43 a bushel, the Department of Agriculture has announced.

The average cost of the corn crop on 7,153 farms was 82 cents a bushel compared with a sale value of $1.10 a bushel, and the average cost of oats on 5,509 farms was 50 cents a bushel compared with a sale value of 57 cents a bushel.

Reports from 284 cotton growers having average yields of 161 pounds of lint per acre show an average cost of 18 cents a pound and an average sale price of 23 cents per pound. For potatoes in different sections of the country average production costs were below the average selling price, but the margin was less than in 1923.

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