Thursday, September 27, 2018

9/25/1958


EAST FAREWELL NEWS


Thursday, September 25, 1958   Vol. C691


LOCAL NEWS


BLACKOUT IN EAST FAREWELL!


East Farewell – The lights went in East Farewell on Thursday as there was an entire blackout in town and most of the surrounding areas. The outage lasted overnight and electricity was finally restored on Friday afternoon. The outage also took down a major portion of the railroad service. As it turns out both the town’s electric grid and the middle 100 miles of the Mighty Keystone Railroad’s track service share the same transformer station. This situation dates back to the establishment of East Farewell. The town was basically built by the railroad as a depot for supply storage and an iron works for rail production. The Iron Works is still one of the largest employers in town and the railroad is the main method of getting in and out of town. When the town was still a one traffic light town the railroad felt that there was no real need to build an independent power supply for the town, the Iron Works had its own power and that was enough. There was enough power to supply the few residences and businesses that existed at that time.
            As East Farewell grew the power station grew also but not in the same proportion as the town. Last year the Mighty Keystone Railroad’s Facility Management prepared a study looking at the expected shortage of power that was expected to occur in 1960. Basically, the study showed that if town growth stayed the same and power demand increased at the current rate the town would hit the power limit in mid-1960. What the report did not seem to take into account was the unexpected expansion of the Fun Pier and the new electric devices that folks are installing in their homes, like bigger refrigerators, electric dryers and electric heaters. The unanticipated extra draw on the overall system seems to have caught up with the system on Thursday night. There was an unexpected sudden temperature drop as a cold front rolled in from the north forcing almost everyone to start up their heaters all within a very short time not knowing that the sudden call for power would over tax the system.
            “It was eerie, no lights anywhere, no street lights, no traffic lights, no lights at all in my home,” said Mrs. Mallard, boarding house owner, “My tenants were all out on the front porch and everyone was in the street. It was kind of fun.”
            What wasn’t fun was the traffic mayhem the occurred since all the traffic lights were out. The police department tried to hang temporary stop signs in the main intersections but they ran out quickly and had to rely on motorist’s good manners. For the most part that worked out, only two fender benders were reported during the length of the outage.
            The Town Council has met with MKR representatives to try and expedite the power hand-off. The have been no announcements as of this publication. It is generally assumed that MKR will relinquish all control of the town’s power. This will necessitate the building of a power plant to serve the town. This will mean higher taxes and construction of a power plant somewhere along the main feed line from the current station. This will be another major step that the town will take in moving away from the MKR ownership and towards an independent entity.

The Fire Department casts an eerie glow over downtown




SPORTS


TRAVELERS WIN WITH AN AMAZING PLAY


Mountain View-The Travelers continued their blistering pace through the league as they beat a very strong Mountain View team with their ace Joe “Freight” Trane and one of the league leading sluggers, Bobby “Hammer” Taxen. The Travelers prevailed 4-3 with masterful pitching on both sides. The Travelers send rookie, Buzz “the Burner” Barnet to the mound and he had another tremendous outing allowing only three runs and nine hits. The highlight of the game and maybe the season for the Travelers defense was an unassisted triple play executed by second baseman, Artie Archibald. In the bottom of the sixth with Explorers, Thorne and Fetter on first and second and Barnet showing his first signs of fatigue batter, Jimmy Reinhardt, smacked a blistering line drive past Barnet and it looked like a base hit into center but Archibald  made a leaping stab and grabbed the ball out of midair. He actually fell on second, doubling up Thorne who thought the ball was through the middle and then was able scramble up and tag an oncoming Fetter before he could get back to first. The fabulous play took a moment to sink in, even field announcer, Joe Laver, was at a loss for words. The quick turnaround gave Barnet a chance to regain his composure and he was able to come out and finish the game giving up on one more hit, no more runs and used his blazing fastball to strike out five in the last three innings with a total of twelve for the game.
            The Explorer’s “Freight” Trane did not disappoint the hometown fans putting in a very strong albeit losing showing by retiring fifteen straight during the middle innings. He only showed a little weakness in the first, giving up two runs right off and in the ninth giving up two more including another homer by Johnny Cloos extending his streak to seven straight games with an extra base hit.
            The Travelers finally come home next week. They will face their arch rival, the Slate Mountain Miners and their pitching ace, Tony “Michael” Angelo. The Travelers will have their nine game winning streak on the line and send Joe Nagy to the mound. The game begins at 1:30 in the Traveler’s Park.


 NATIONAL NEWS


LITTLE ROCK VOTES FOR SEGREGATION – AUTOWORKERS STRIKE – AURORA MAYOR SUSPENDS ENTIRE POLICE FORCE – NATIONALISTS BREAK COMMIE SIEGE – IS IKE UNWILLING TO TALK TO RUSSIA? – NEW LEBANON PREZ WANT US OUT BY OCTOBER – DEGAULLE GETS POWER TO SETTLE ALGERIAN PROBLEM


Little Rock votes overwhelmingly against admitting Negroes to the all-white schools in the district and action begins immediately to reopen the schools as private institutions. The Supreme Court warns the South that it will permit neither violence nor legal maneuvers to block integration of schools. Chief Justice Warren read a 5,000 word opinion by the nine justices, setting forth the legal reasoning behind the Sept 12 ruling which ordered the Little Rock high schools to admit Negro students this year.

About 71,000 Detroit autoworkers from the three major companies walk out of their jobs. The United Auto Workers Union blames the unauthorized strikes on what it said was refusal of the companies to negotiate local grievances.

Mayor Paul Egan suspends the entire police force in Aurora, Ill - all 68 and proclaims a state of emergency and calls on the citizenry to make arrests when laws are violated. One patrolman said the police are carrying on - business as usual. “Nobody’s paying any attention to him,” said one patrolman. The Mayor is bristling with anger over the refusal of Police Chief Donald Curran to obey Egan’s order firing him. The controversy between Egan and Curran stemmed from an Egan edict several weeks ago ordering police to clamp down on all forms of gambling.

Nationalists crack the Communist blockade of Quemoy with another supply-of- landing operation. Nationalist air force planes once again parachuted supplies to the island in the night. Though Red siege guns thundered, the air drop was successful and there was no report of damage to planes.

The Soviet Union declares President Eisenhower has shown he is unwilling to “listen to the voice of reason by rejecting Premier Khrushchev’s latest message on the Formosa crisis. Khrushchev’s letter demanded that President Eisenhower withdraw American ships and troops from the Formosa Strait or risk being driven out by Communist China with the support of Russia.

Rashid Karami, the new pro-Nasser Premier of Lebanon, says he wants American troops to quit his country by the end of October.

The French people accepted by an 80% majority, a new constitution which invests Premier de Gaulle with extraordinary powers to settle the Muslim rebellion in Algeria and to restore France’s crippled fortunes with an authoritarian regime.



Many, many thanks to www.mrpopculture.com for contributing to this section of the East Farewell News.




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