Years Ago

Today is Monday, Dec. 31, the 366th and final day of 2012.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1759: Arthur Guinness founds his famous brewery in Dublin.

1862: President Abraham Lincoln signs an enabling act paving the way for Virginia’ western counties to become the state of West Virginia.

1879: Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrates his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, N.J.

1969: Joseph Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United Mine Workers of America, is shot to death with his wife and daughter in their Clarksville, Pa., home by hitmen acting at the orders of UMWA president Tony Boyle.

1972: Major League baseball player Roberto Clemente, 38, is killed when a plane he’d chartered to bring relief supplies to earthquake-devastated Nicaragua crashes.

1985: Singer Rick Nelson, 45, and six other people are killed when fire breaks out aboard a DC-3 en route to a New Year’s Eve performance in Dallas.

Vindicator files

1987: Edward J. DeBartolo Sr. announces that his company and Dillard Department Stores of Little Rock, Ark., have reached an agreement to buy the Higbee Co., Cleveland’s 127-year-old department store chain.

Roberta Graham, cofounder and executive director of SCOPE Inc. in Warren, is accepted as the first woman member of the Warren Rotary Club.

Sharon Steel Corp. is hiring new employees at a “developmental rate” of pay, which is 25 percent lower than the journeyman rate.

1972: Youngstown’s two major hospitals boost their room rates $3 per day, bringing the charge for a semi-private room to $62.80 at the Youngstown Hospital Association and $58 to $62 in St. Elizabeth’s.

G. Donald Schade, architect for the new Warren Municipal building, says its new jail is escape-proof. “The only way anyone could break out of here is through human error, if someone left a door open,” he declares.

Rising water levels In Lake Erie have claimed more than a dozen lakefront cottages on Presque Isle and near Erie.

Mayor Jack C. Hunter says agreement has been reached with three major Youngstown employee groups for wage increases and a pact is within reaching distance with the Fraternal Order of Police.

1962: The Packard Electric Division of General Motors had a record payroll in Warren of $34.3 million in 1962, making it the city’s largest employer.

The Robins Enterprises Co. of Warren will lease the Palace Theater in Youngstown from the Palace Realty Co. and will continue operating the theater. The company also offers to buy the State theater.

The Rev. E.W. Bloomquist announces his resignation from First Baptist Temple after a 20-year pastorate.

1937: As Mr. and Mrs. Youngstown ring in the new year, they’ll find the price at some of the best spots in town to be as much as $10 per couple for dinner, a bottle of bubbly, a floor show and dancing.

The Youngstown University Club is purchasing the George Renner property at Park and Michigan, a mansion that was built about 30 years ago.