20-40-100 Years Ago -- March 12

Mar. 12—100 Years Ago

March 12, 1923

The marker commemorating the visit of General Braddock to Braddock Springs while en route to Fort Duquesne in the early days of the French and Indian War will soon become a reality, Mrs. F.H. Markell, regent of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which chapter has been boosting this marker, announced Saturday evening. A large boulder from the side of the mountains back of the spring, near Braddock Heights, will be moved to the spring and a bronze plaque, Generals Washington and Braddock being pictured, will be placed on the boulder.

Washington, March 11 — The quick mobilization of more than two dozen pieces of fire apparatus saved the heart of the business district from a disastrous fire early today. The fire, in the Glover Building, about 100 feet from the Treasury Department, and almost across the street from the Willard and Washington Hotels, did damage estimated at $100,000. The fire, of unknown origin, started in the basement.

40 Years Ago

March 12, 1983

In a move without precedent in the Maryland General Assembly, Sen. Raymond E. Beck, R-Carroll/Baltimore County, has been sitting in the Senate Economic Committee chair of Sen. Edward P. Thomas Jr., the Frederick Republican who died March 1, and voting in Thomas' name. It is the first time a senator has been allowed to fully represent another senator in the latter's committee and also be allowed to vote on his own committee.

There have been snickers and comic banter in the legislature, even a little joke or two about it from the governor. It is the distress of grain farmers in Western Maryland who believe chemical cloud seeding brought a drought to a clearly defined agricultural area in the Cumberland Valley, ruining hundreds of dollars in crops. The legislature finally gave approval to a bill which would allow local county governments in Garrett, Washington and Frederick counties to enforce laws which prohibit weather modification by airplanes seeding the clouds, which can cause the heavens to unload before the rain reaches the farmers.

(Editor's Note: The News-Post does not have access to archives from 50 years ago for August 1972 through March 1973. The "50 Years Ago" summary will return April 1, 2023.)

20 Years Ago

March 12, 2003

What a difference a week makes. Seven days after announcing city employees would probably face raise eliminations and layoffs, Mayor Jennifer Dougherty said her new proposed budget would restore workers' step-pay increases, their cost of living adjustment (COLA) would be increased to 3.3 percent and although some City Hall jobs would have to be shuffled, no employees should be fired.

A broken water pipe, undetected for a week, is draining 100,000 gallons a day out of Woodsboro's water system, 20,000 more gallons than the town uses. "We have a fiasco here that we are going to get straightened out," Burgess Donald Trimmer said a Tuesday night's town meeting. The leak is coming from the town's industrial park, Mr. Trimmer said. But the exact location of the break hasn't been found. Frozen ground and snow are obstacles in the search for the leak, said Mr. Trimmer.