Look Back ... to a demand for a new high school in Oxford, 1948

May 26—May 26, 1948, in The Star: Around 150 leading Oxford residents got together last night and decided to push the Calhoun County Board of Education to build a new high school for their children. Plans for the proposed school entail acquiring 20 acres of additional property adjacent to the present high school property. The new complex would have a 1,500-seat auditorium and a gymnasium. The group also proposed that the present grammar school be sold, and its activities moved to the Fulton Hall building. Also this date: Verbal exchanges between opposing attorneys enlivened an otherwise routine examination of witnesses for the plaintiff this morning in the trial of the $150,000 suit brought against the City of Anniston by the Anniston contracting firm of Dethlefs & Hannon. The contracting firm has charged the city with breach of contract in the proposed construction of an office building adjacent to Anniston Memorial Hospital.

May 26, 1998, in The Star: It's been almost six months since Calhoun County sheriff's deputies padlocked the Frontier Palace bingo hall in Piedmont, and seven months since SBI Communications president Ron Foster put the building up for sale. Calhoun County Circuit Court Judge Joel Laird recently ruled that the building may never again house bingo games. The bottom line: The end of bingo had immediate reverberations in Piedmont. Most of all, it did hurt the town's economy.