In the news this week 81 years ago:
The Sewickley Valley home front was doing its part to aid the war effort.
• Plans were underway to transform a vacant lot at the corner of Beaver and Broad Streets into a square honoring the Sewickley Valley’s veterans. At a meeting of the Sewickley Civilian Defense Council, chairman of the planning committee Alex Davidson submitted drawings showing a brick walkway leading to an Honor Roll monument of local men and women in the armed forces. The schematics also called for a flagpole, shrubbery and trees.
• Osborne’s Council of Civilian Defense was set to sponsor a scrap metal drive from Sept. 15-30 in the playground across Beaver Road from the Osborne Public School building. “Light articles will be taken there by school children and parents,” the Herald reported, “while persons who have articles too large and heavy to be transported to the scrap pile without help should contact any member of the scrap committee.”
• “The largest warship ever launched on inland waterways is being fitted for a 2000-mile voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to join the U.S. Naval fleet,” the Herald reported. After a ceremony at Dravo Corporations Neville Island shipyard, the tank landing vessel LST-1 was the first of a forthcoming fleet to be launched. Moments later, a “PC-type submarine chaser” followed the warship into the river.
Later that same day, at the huge new shipbuilding plant of the American Bridge Company on the former Fair Oaks flats, the keels of three new transport landing ships were laid. It had been just 141 days after construction on the plant itself began.
• The Giant Eagle Super Market on Beaver Road advertised Kellogg’s Corn Flakes at $.05/box; sirloin steak, $.45/lb.; Jell-o, three boxes for $.19; and Heinz ketchup, $.19 for a “large bottle.”
