What Happened 25 – 50 – 100 Years Ago This Month
May 1994 – 25 Years Ago
The Smithfield Town Council voted to annex the West Smithfield Sanitary District.
Johnston Community College placed students in local day-care centers as part of the Early Childhood Education Program.
The Belk Hudson in downtown Smithfield held a Mother’s Day sale. Dresses were on sale for $24.99.
The Air Pure Products company announced that it would be setting up shop in Smithfield, not Kenly as previously planned.
The Selma Original Free Will Baptist Church sold barbecue chicken for $4.50 each during its fund drive.
The Johnston County Board of Education requested that the County Commissioners raise teacher supplements and reduce class sizes.
The Pine Level Town Board agreed to pay Utility Services of Madison $4,138 per year to maintain the municipal water tank.
Mabel Johnson, longtime librarian at Benson Library, retired.
May 1969 – 50 Years Ago
Specialist Fifth Class Jimmy Wayne Moore visited his mother, Mrs. Glennie B. Moore, in Kenly before his deployment to Vietnam.
L.A. Mann of Decatur, Georgia won a contract to renovate Smithfield’s old Post Office on Fourth and Market Streets. The building would become home to the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, the Soil Conservation Service, the Farmers Home Administration, and the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.
Sixth-grader Joyce Boykin of Glendale-Chapel School won first place in the Johnston County conservation poster contest.
“The Drum Beater,” a film produced by the American Cancer Society, was shown to Cancer Crusade volunteers in the Princeton Community Building.
Winn-Dixie was selling eggs for $0.49 per dozen and corn for $0.10 per 12-ounce can.
Clayton celebrated its Centennial. The Clayton Rescue Squad sponsored a carnival for the occasion.
Mack Sowell, a teacher of English and French at Richard B. Harrison School, became the first black man to be elected to the Selma Town Council.
Rev. James E. Langford resigned from the Selma Baptist Church. He had agreed to become pastor of the First Baptist Church in Canton, 18 miles west of Asheville.
May 1919 – 100 Years Ago
The faculty of Selma school held a picnic.
The Clayton Methodist church’s new sanctuary was consecrated.
The children and grandchildren of Mrs. Mary Ryals met for a reunion at her homestead.
A thief entered B.W. Lee’s house on Bridge Street, Smithfield and stole $30 worth of items, including a suit of clothes, from two of his lodgers. Bloodhounds recovered the clothes, but could not track down the thief.
The North American Land Company auctioned off the Preston Strickland Farm seven miles from Benson, seven miles from Four Oaks, twelve miles from Smithfield, and fifteen miles from Clayton.
The Smithfield M.E. Church was tasked with collecting $15,500 as part of the Southern Methodists’ missionary fund drive.
David W. Williams returned to his home in Bentonville Township from France, where he had been serving in the artillery.
Hard, cold rain damaged the cotton crop so badly that many farmers decided to plant either more cotton or another type of crop.
