Years Ago

Today is Sunday, Sept. 6, the 249th day of 2009. There are 116 days left in the year. On this date in 1901, President William McKinley is shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y. (McKinley dies eight days later; he is succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. Czolgosz is executed the next month.)

In 1757, the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution, is born in Auvergne, France. In 1837, the Oberlin Collegiate Institute of Ohio goes co-educational. In 1909, American explorer Robert Peary sends a telegram from Indian Harbor, Labrador, announcing that he has reached the North Pole five months earlier. In 1916, the first self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, is opened in Memphis, Tenn., by Clarence Saunders. In 1939, the Union of South Africa declares war on Germany. In 1948, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands is inaugurated as queen, two days after the abdication of her mother, Queen Wilhelmina. In 1959, death claims actress Kay Kendall in London at age 33 and actor Edmund Gwenn in Los Angeles at age 81. In 1966, South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd is stabbed to death by an apparently deranged page during a parliamentary session in Cape Town. In 1970, Palestinian guerrillas seize control of three U.S.-bound jetliners. Two are later blown up on the ground in Jordan, along with a plane hijacked on Sept. 9; the fourth plane is destroyed on the ground in Egypt; there is no loss of life. In 1978, James Wickwire and Louis Reichardt become the first Americans to reach the summit of Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second-highest mountain, after Mount Everest.

September 6, 1984: Youngstown police raid a suspected numbers drop at a Campbell used car lot and seize $3,500 in cash and 4,000 illegal betting slips.

Ohio House Majority Whip Mary Boyle, D-Cleveland Heights, says her Ohio House subcommittee will recommend “comparable worth“ legislation to stop pay discrimination against women in public and private employment.

LTV Corp. restarts some of its operations at its Warren Works, including its huge Trumbull Cliffs blast furnace, creating work for about 300 laid off steelworkers.

September 6, 1969: A workman falls to his death while working on scenery hooks 80 feet above the stage of the Youngstown Symphony Center. Roy E. Dennis, 36, of Belmont, W. Va., is pronounced dead at South Side Hospital.

A two-year-old boy, Hank J. Williams of New Middletown, is killed when he fell through the rusted-out floor of his mother’s car in Metz Road and is run over by the rear wheel. The boy’s mother was cited for operating an unsafe vehicle.

The attendant at a Clark Service Station who was stabbed during a robbery recognizes three men sitting in front of him during an Austintown Fitch High football game as his robbers. He notifies Police Chief James Hazlett, who was at the game, and four Austintown police officers maneuver their way into position to arrest the men during the fourth quarter of the game.

September 6, 1959: Two men escape serious injury as their car plunges over an embankment at Sulphur Springs in Mill Creek Park, landing on its roof some 40 feet below.

The Rev. John J. Voytilla of Campbell reads his first Divine Liturgy at his home parish, St. John Eastern Orthodox Church. The 1955 Campbell Memorial High School graduate was ordained Aug. 27.

An Amish community near Mercer builds a new school house in less than a week for 10 Amish children in East Lackawannock Township in the Mercer Joint School District.

September 6, 1934: Residents of Middleton and Perry townships file petitions with the Columbiana County elections board for local options that would allow the sale of beer and liquor.

George W. Martin, who was the first physical director of the Youngstown YMCA more than 40 years ago at the age of just 17, returns to Youngstown after an absence of 32 years, and will end his career once again working for the Y.

A final check of petitions sent to President Roosevelt show that they contained 138,362 signatures in support of a Beaver-Mahoning rivers waterway.

Charles F. Scheible, 65, mayor of Youngstown from 1924 to 1928 and service director under two other mayors, dies at his home at 107 W. LaClede Ave.