Octobers Past

75 Years Ago, 1942

From The LaGrange Daily News

Front page news: Local school children to aid in scrap drive

The boys and girls of both the LaGrange and Troup County schools are part of a National Junior Army which will begin a great attack on Monday, Oct. 5, when they launch their offensive against the metal shortage.

They are going out to find and bring in the things of which tanks and ships are made — rusty pipes, broken bad springs, air guns that won’t shoot any longer — junk.

The local regiment is headed by B.A. Lancaster, Superintendent of the LaGrange Public Schools, will be a colonel in the junior service; County School Superintendent J.H. Melson will be a colonel of the county’s regiment. Each school principal will serve as a Major in the Junior Army, with teachers as captains.

School boys and girls of each class room will be the lieutenants, sergeants, corporals and privates of the Junior Army here. Those who do well will be promoted just like real soldiers in the fighting army.

Troup goes over the top in September war bond sale 

Troup County went over the top in sales of War Savings Stamps and Bonds for the month of September by a margin sufficient to attain the September quota and make up the deficit in the August quota.

J.J. Milam and Lewis Price, co-chairmen of the Troup County War Bond committee, announced that the September sales for Troup County totaled $191,010.16 whereas the quota was $159,300. The total record for the months of July, August and September was $548, 131.66 for a quota of $480,400.

LC approved for AAC list 

LaGrange College has been approved for membership in the Association of American Colleges by the board of directors, announced having been made at the meeting of representatives of 500 colleges held this week in Philadelphia.

Hubert T. Quillian, president of LaGrange College, attended the meeting of the Association and heard the formal approval of the local school for membership in the association.

Surveys are started on LaGrange Airport project

City Engineer George Sargent and J.J. Milam, Chairman of the Troup County Board of Commissioners, today disclosed that surveying work has begun at the LaGrange airport and is now going on, preparatory to the start of improvement work.

After the surveys have been completed, the data obtained therefrom will be sent to CAA headquarters in Atlanta, where CAA officials will take them for a study. It is expected that work might be begun within a month and finished within a year.

The Civil Aeronautics Authority airports approval board in Washington recently gave final approval for an airport improvement project in LaGrange, after local and county leaders and civic organizations together with Senator Richard B. Russell and Congressman Sidney Camp had carried on a tireless campaign to secure said improvements.

Original cost for improvement work was set at $525,000 and it is believed that the project will cost at least that much, possibly more. The project calls for construction of two or three concrete runways and expansion of the field to meet existing needs.

Troup concern making parts for U.S. victory fleet 

Three Georgia shipyards and five Georgia manufacturers — one in Troup County — are now engaged in making cargo vessels or parts for these vessels, which are keeping the armed forces of the United States supplied throughout the world, the Regional Office of War Information in Atlanta revealed yesterday for the first time.

The shipyards are two in Savannah and one in Brunswick. The manufacturers are in Newnan, Savannah, Columbus, Atlanta and West Point.

The Troup County concern is the West Point Foundry & Machine Works in West Point which furnishes marine ventilators, the war information office revealed.

First LaGrange WAAC 

Miss Mattie Lou Hughett of LaGrange was sworn in Friday at Fort McPherson as a member of the WAAC’s. Miss Hughett is the first from LaGrange to join the WAAC’s. She was sworn in with 15 others.

Miss Hughett has been employed by Callaway Mills since moving to LaGrange three years ago.

With local boys now in the service 

Aviation Cadet Edwin M. Gore of LaGrange has completed his pre-flight training course in navigation at the Army Air Force Pre-Flight School (Navigator) in Monroe, La., and will soon start his second leg of an intensive course of training that will graduate him as a second lieutenant.

Cadet Gore attended LaGrange High School and Emory at Oxford. Before joining the armed forces he was employed as a partner in the firm of Joe S. Gore and Son in LaGrange.

A picture of Cadet Gore appeared in the last issue of Collier’s Magazine. The picture was in an article that concerned training in the United States Army Corps in Florida.

Julia Dyar, a retired journalist, is active in the Troup County Historical Society.