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Fifty years ago this November

When I was at the Library of Virginia a few weeks back pulling down those 2 issues of The East End News from 1925, I also got these copies of The Citizen from November 18th and 25th, 1965 (PDF).

The front page piece on the opening of the new library on 25th Street caught my. It wasn’t until I started putting this together that it even hit me that this was almost exactly 50 years ago… Anybody know any of the kids from the photos?

The article says that the 25th Street location replaced the Rosa D. Bower branch on Clay Street. Does anyone know where this was?

The rest of these issues of The Citizen are a generally amiable snapshot of that time period. The page 3 “Fulton File” is a social column for that neck of the woods, and the mention of the House of Happiness (aka Citadel of Hope) in the “Churchill Courier” is neat. Cover stories about litter and neglected cemeteries ring true today. The letter-to-editor complaining that Chimborazo Park is beat and past its prime is 50-year-old proof that whining did not begin with the birth of our comment section. The photos from that year’s Armstrong-Walker game are perfect.

The headline from “Police Say Local Bootleggers Known” feels like a total throwback, though, and the next issue’s “Bootlegging, Dope Traffic On Rise in Capital City” just gets weird, going into what it takes to arrest someone for being a homosexual.

Two pieces about the then-new four year staggered elections to city council give a hint to the white fight for control of the city and the coming annexation debacle.

I haven’t been able to find out how long The Citizen was published. The Library of Virginia has bunch on microfilm, though, if anyone wants to do some digging.

SEE ALSO: The Citizen (1960s) (CHPN 8/10/2009)

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Armstrong-Walker