Page 7 - Lynchburg Area Timeline 1700-2009

1897- (Dec. 8): Agudath Achim congregation, the forerunner of Agudath Sholom synagogue is formed (5)
1897- Church which became the Rivermont Presbyterian Church established (51)
1898- Lynchburg supplies three full companies for Spanish-American War. Lynchburg sailor Nicholas Smith is one of 226 who perish on the Battleship Maine. (42, 221)
1898- Benjamin Thornhill begins wagon making business on Commerce Street. In 1940s it becomes largest wagon making company in country (40).
1900-1910
1900- (April): Statue to honor soldiers of Confederacy dedicated at Monument Terrace.
1901- Building known as The Casino opens in Rivermont Park. Was used as a Summer theater which hosted vaudeville acts and was used until 1920s (70)
1901- Lynchburg chapter of the Anti-Saloon League formed (225)
1902- (Feb. 24): Last public hanging occurs in Lynchburg. Executed is Joe Higginbotham, convicted of raping and assaulting wife of a cotton Mill owner (40)
1902- Rivermont Park opened as an amusement park by the Lynchburg Traction and Light Company, Amusement park closed in 1915 (48)
1902- Henry McWane founds Lynchburg Plow Company, making cast
iron pipe. McWane Pipe Works was renamed Lynchburg Foundry in 1903. (40)
1902- Carter Glass is elected to his first term in Congress. He is instrumental in rewriting the state constitution to include $1.50 poll tax and literacy test which disenfranchises many minority voters (221)
1902- (April 24): Aviary building in Miller Park dedicated. It housed the Jones Memorial Library in 1902 (14)
1903- Anne Spencer House built (127)
1903- First City Armory dedicated on Clay Street and housed the Lynchburg Home Guard, Company B, 116th Infantry. Current City Armory was built In 1930 (11)
1903- (April 12): Holy Trinity Lutheran Church organized with 28 members (128)
1903- Lynchburg College founded by Josephus Hopwood with the purchase of the Westover Hotel for $60,000. It opens as Virginia Christian College (42)
1903- Presbyterian Home begins operations with five children, three of whom belong to the home’s first matron (172)
1903- Odd Fellows Orphanage opens (50)
1903- Elks National Home opens its doors. Housed in defunct Hotel
Bedford, which was bought for $50,000 and renovated (85)
1904- Lynchburg builds Pedlar Reservoir in Amherst County by putting a dam On the Pedlar River (169)
1904- Academy of Music is built at cost of $45,000 (3
1904- Elks Lodge opens in house formerly owned by Jubal Early near Sixth
And Main streets. (84)
1904- Reusens hydro-electric plant built (137)
1905- (Jan. 4): Academy of Music opens with a crowd of 800 in attendance to see two-act play, “Music Tomfoolery.” (3)
1905- Sweet Briar College opens with 36 students in four buildings (42) 1905- Old Dominion Box Company opens. Its first products were shoe
boxes for Craddock-Terry (47)
1905- Krise Building at Ninth and Main Streets completed. At the time it was The tallest structure in Lynchburg (41)
1906- A local legislator leads an effort to ban sales of Coca-Cola in Virginia saying it is an “Unchristian drink.” (221)
1907- Retail Merchants Association formed (42)
1907- Carrie Nation delivers a 5-minute address on evils of cigarettes
while visiting one of the leading tobacconists in the city (225)
1908- (June 3): George M. Jones Memorial Library opens. It is limited to white residents of Lynchburg. Fully-integrated library does not appear until 1966 when the Lynchburg Public Library opens a facility downtown (50, 221)
1908-1910- Monacan Indians build a church and mission settlement at Bear Mountain, the church known as St. Paul’s. Mission school Closes in 1963 (221)
1909- (Oct. 26): Five children die in fire which destroys Shelton College at Presbyterian Orphanage (94)
1910-1920
1910- Twenty-three drivers are fined for going over the speed limit, which was 10 miles per hour (223)
1910- (Dec. 9): Thornhill Wagon Works destroyed by fire in lower basin. Company relocates to Rutherford Street (94)
1911- (Apr. 20): Fire destroys Academy Theatre (94)
1911- During Fair Week, H.M. Reinhart makes a flight from Lynchburg Fair Grounds, crashing between two tombstones in Spring Hill Cemetery (6)
1911- Lynchburg High School opens on Park Avenue. Renamed E.C. Glass High School in 1925 (40)
1911- Virginia State Epileptic Colony opens primarily to serve people with epilepsy. Name was changed to State Colony for Feebleminded and Epilpetics in 1919; to Lynchburg State Colony in 1940; to Lynchburg Training School and Hospital in 1954 and to Central Virginia Training Center in 1983 (54,55)
1911- Kriselea, later named Villa Marie, constructed (70)
1911- Equal Suffrage League organized by Elizabeth Langhorne Lewis
(221)
1912- Kemper Street Station built (133)
1912- John and Edward Lane Sr. begin manufacturing cedar chests. Lane Company in Altavista becomes top cedar chest maker in this country. (135)
1912- Charles B. Fleet, inventor of Chap Stick, sells rights to A.H. Robins for $5 (39)
1912- Lynchburg Light and Traction Company extends its tracks to near Trents Ferry Road, creating the Peakland subdivision (48)
1912- Hospital opens on Hollins Mill Road, operated under the auspices of the Health Department and City Council as Lynchburg Hospital. It became Lynchburg General in the 1930s (40)
1913- First moden supermarket, the A&P, opens on Main Street (225)
1913- Carter Glass proposes formation of the Federal Reserve (221)
1913- Virginian Hotel opens on Church Street. It operated until 1971 (200)
1913- An explosion, the result of detonation of dynamite, blows the veranda off the home of philanthropist Mrs. George M. Jones (225)
1913- Oakwood Country Club is chartered. Clubhouse constructed in 1914.
1913- Lynchburg’s baseball team, the Shoemakers, begins play in the United States Baseball League. New York, Newark, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington also have teams. (225)
1914- Mary Rice Hayes, wife of the president of Virginia Seminary, founds Lynchburg’s first NAACP chapter. (221)
1914- (Mar. 1): Bedford Pulp and Paper Company in Big Island is destroyed by fire fed by 50-mile-per-hour winds and visible 30 miles away (94)
1914- Oakwood Country Club opens (41)
1914- John P. Hughes Motor Company formed. (47)
1915- (Sept.)- A Lynchburg group, the Musketeers is formed as a military unit (42)
1915- (Apr. 20)- First prisoners arrive at City Farm, established for the custody of local and state prisoners. First eight prisoners were housed in tents. Farm included a dairy farm which produced milk and butter. Farm closed In 1945 (58)
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