Remember When March 24, 2016

10 years ago (2006)
•A contingent of Rock County residents joined thousands of family members and friends at a Mississippi military base last week to spend time with soldiers about to head overseas.
There are 73 National Guard members with the Luverne and Pipestone units who will join 2,600 Minnesota soldiers leaving for Iraq.
That represents the largest number of the state’s National Guard troops to see combat since World War II.
 
25 years ago (1991)
•The first step was the purchase of a new library building: the next is finding an owner for the old library.
Luverne City Administrator Steve Perkins encouraged the City Council Monday to begin making future plans for the Carnegie library building at 205 N. Freeman Ave.
Perkins said the Green Earth Players theater company and the Rock County Historical Society have both expressed interest in the building.
 
50 years ago (1966)
•The Luverne fire department turned thumbs down on the city council’s proposal to submit the question of a site for a new fire hall to the voters.
At a special meeting of the fire department Thursday night, the firemen voted against the city’s vacant lot at the corner of Lincoln and Spring as one of the sites, and went on record as favoring the old creamery property only.
At a meeting held Wednesday of last week, the council had proposed that the question of the location of the building be decided by the voters. They had proposed two sites, the city’s vacant lot and the creamery property.
 
75 years ago (1941)
•President Roosevelt’s speech Saturday night caused quite a stir in domestic and international quarters when he made “total Victory” over the dictators the objective of an American “total effort.” He warned that inconvenience and sacrifice lie ahead for the nation and that “you will feel the impact of this gigantic effort in your daily lives.”
The president hailed the passage of the lease-lend bill by Congress as a decision ending “any attempts at appeasement in our land; the end of urging us to get along with the dictators; the end of compromise with tyranny and the forces of oppression.” The address was one of the president’s most vigorous utterances, a speech bristling with determination to eliminate Naziism as a world force, and dedicating the material and industrial resources of the country anew to that purpose. Despite its dangerous tone, the speech generally met with favorable reaction, even from many of the president’s most bitter critics.
 
100 years ago (1916)
•An idea of the number of people from this vicinity who witnessed the presentation of “The Birth of a Nation” at Sioux Falls on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the closing days for this attraction, is given by the statement that the Omaha company sold seventy-five tickets to that place during that period.
Of the total number, twenty-one tickets were sold Thursday, twenty-three Friday and thirty-one Saturday. All who purchased tickets did not go to Sioux Falls for the express purpose of seeing the great photoplay, of course, but a great majority of them did, and it is estimated that more than two hundred and fifty Rock county people saw the production during its two weeks’ run in that city.