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f Growing With Clinton • r i t, The Clinton Chronide i Clinton, S. C, Thursday, December 7, 1967 ^ Vol. 68 — No. 49 Buy Your Gifts In Clinton Carol Service Scheduled 40-Unit Christmas Parade Slated In Clinton Today The 40-unit Clinton Christ mas Parade will get under way at 4:30 p.m. today. Following the parade, there will be a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and a com munity carol service. Clinton Mayor Noland Sud- deth will turn on the lights in the city’s large Christmas tree downtown. The Christmas Carol ser vice will follow the tree lights ing and will be led by the Clinton Council of Camp Fire Girls, Girl Scouts of Clinton and Joanna. The carol ser vice will be held around the tree and the public is invited to join in the singing. Jimmy Orr will be the or ganist. Case Brothers of Spar tanburg will furnish the or gan and Torrington Company will furnish the public ad dress system. The caroling service is sponsored by the Greater Clinton Chamber of Com merce. The Christmas parade also is sponsored by the Cham ber of Commerce with ar rangements being handled by the Clinton Jaycees. Prior to the parade through downtown Clinton, most units will participate in a parade through Whitten village, be ginning at’ '2:30 p.m. Here is the official order of the 40-unit Clinton Christmas parade today. 1. Three Wise Men — Ara bian Horses from Bali Hai Ranch. 2. City Officials—Mayor B. Noland Suddeth; Councilmen: Boyd Holtzclaw, Truman Owens, Fred Bragg, Lynn Cooper, George Bagwell, and Talmadge Sanders. 3. Presidents — Presbyte rian College, Dr. Marc Weer- sing; Thornwell Orphange, Dr. M. A. MacDonald: Whit ten Village, Dr. Ray Suber. 4. W. C. Dobbins, State Sen ator. 5. Paul Culbertson, Coun ty Delegate. 6. Parker High School Band. 7. Miss South Carolina, Miss Peggy White — Float Spon sors: Dillard Boland, J. C. Thomas Jeweler, Jewel Box. 8. The Clinton Campfire Girls. 9. Float—The Light of the World — Sponsors: Adair’s Men’s Shop, Johnson’s Men’s Shop, Pitts’ Men’s Shop. 10. Presbyterian College ROTC—(a) Staff, (b) Com panies A & B, (c) Colors, (d) Drum & Bugle Corps (e) Companies C & D, and (f) Wysor Rifles. 11. Miss Clinton, Miss Lynn CHRISTMAS PARADE ROUTE SHOWN ABOVE Ellen Wassung—Sponors: Mc Gee’s Drug Store, Sadler— Owens Pharmacy, Young’s Pharmacy, Howard’s Phar macy. 12. Laurens High School Band. 13. Float — “Hope of the World.” Sponsors: Belk’s Department Store, Rose’s, Harper’s. 14. Joanna Girl Scouts. 15. Little Miss Clinton, Miss Nancy .Faye Grube, Sponsors^ The Kiwahis Club. 16. Laurens County Res cue Squad. 17. Float—“Season’s Greet ings” — Sponsors: Clinton Mills Store, Lydia Mill Store, Cunhine Cleaners. 18. Joanna Cub Scouts. 19. Miss Laurens, Lugenia Cooper, Sponsors: The Broad way Theater, The Chronicle, Leonard - Marler Insurance Agency. 20. Hi.ckory Tavern High School Band. 21. Miss Clinton High, Miss Kay Caldwell, and Attend ants, Shirley Simpson and Melissa Turner — Sponsors: Lynn Cooper Motors, Bald win Motors, Plaxico Motors. 22. Clowns — Presbyterian College-. 23. The .Shrine Motor Scoot er Unit. 24. Float — “Merry Christ mas to AH”—Sponsors: M. S. Bailey & Son, Bank of Clin ton, Citizens Federal Savings & Loan. 25. Bell Street High School Band. 26. Train, The Whitten Vil lage Special. 27. “Float—“Good Will to Men”—Sponsors: The Lions Club. 28. Ford High School Band. 29. Majorettes, Tommy Ly- brand School of Dance. 30. Belton Rescue Squad: 31. Float —“A Christmas Morning”—Sponsors: Buirriss Harrison Co., Maxwell Broth ers Furniture, T. E. Jones & Sons. 32. Sanders High School Band. 33. Float — “P e a ce on Earth” — Practical Nurses, Bailey Memorial Hospital. 34. Clinton Boy Scouts. 35. Float — “F res hman Class,” Presbyterian College. 36. Clinton Junior High School Band. 37. Float—“Only A Cottage Small” — Sponsors: Whitten Village. 38. City Fire Truck. 39. Clinton High School Band. 40. Santa Claus—Sponsors, Piggly Wiggly, Community Cash, Young Brothers’ Ser vice Station. i .v:'.' WASSUNG DIRECTS CHORUS IN REHEARSAL . . For Annual Christmas Program School Site Suggested For Courthouse The old Central Elemen- ary School property in Laurens is being discussed as a possible site for a new Laurens County Courthouse. ' The county legislative dele gation and county commis- uoners currently are con sidering what to do about the courthouse situation. On Nov. 14, county voters rejected a ^2.9 million proposal to con struct a new courthouse. Officials new reportedly are planning to hold another referendum, in February. Two questions are expected to be presented in the advis ory referendum: whether vot ers prefer to construct a new courthouse or renovate the current courthouse. The old Central Elemen tary School property has been prominently mentioned as a possible site if it is deci ded to construct a new court house. The new proposal for con struction of a new courthouse is expected to call for a cost of not more than $1.G miUion. Laurens Slipping Center Planned Plans for a new, $1 million chopping center complex to serve all residents of Laur ens County were announced today by Independent Enter- irises, Inc., a commercial -'eal estate development con- 'ern from Chattanooga, Ten- lessee. To be located on the By- Pass (U. S. Highways 76 and 176) in Laurens'£& its inter- ection with the new Caroline street Extension, three blocks from downtown Laur- enS, the new shopping center s planned to facilitate the irescnt and projected future growth of Laurens and its en tire trade area. The' major department store to be located in the 1 00,000 square foot Plaza Shopping Center will be a modern Edward’s depart ment store of 45,700 square feet according to Moses Lebovitz president of the Chattanooga commercial real •state firm. Community Chorus Yule Concert Set . The Community Chorus Christmas Concert is scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 10, at Belk Auditorium • 4 on the Presbyterian College campus. The program is to start at 5 p.m. There is no admission charge and the public is invited to at tend. The 50-voice chorus is under the direction of Robert (Bob) Wassung and will present a pro gram of both religious and popular Christmas music. There will be some selections from “The Messiah.” This will mark the fifth annual performance by the chorus which presents only one program per year. The chorus is made up primarily of members of church choirs in the area. The group has been practicing for the Christmas program once a week since September. The City Recreation Department and several ’ local business firms underwrite the expenses of the chorus. City Cablevision Talks To Continue Clinton City Councilmen Monday night agreed that Mayor Noland Suddeth and City Attorney Cecil White should continue negotiations concerning the city’s cable- vision franchise. Suddeth reported that a group from Orangeburg has made an attractive offer to the city and asked if council- men were interested in the negotiations continuing. The group plans to operate the cablevision service in Laur ens and wants to construct one antenna to serve both Clinton and Laurens. The group - has the cable- vision franchise in Newberry, Orangeburg- and Elberton, Ga. Several councilmen expres sed interest in going to El berton to sec the service in operation. If negotiations continue to be favorable, the cablevision service could be in operation in Clinton by 1969. In other action at the regu lar monthly meeting Monday, council: * —Changed the deadline for business license renewals to April 15 to coincide with the income tax deadline. —Instructed the Police De partment to keep two lanes of traffic open at all times on major thoroughfares in town. This was done after council received several complaints about large vans blocking lanes of traffic while unlead ing at downtown businesses. —Instructed City Engineer Ralph Holt to proceed with rere-routing power lines in the vicinity of Broad Street and Carolina Avenue. The project is necessary if the highway department is to widening the Broad-Carolina intersections. Also, it was pointed out by Holt, “This should be done anyway. If a acr hit one of these poles at the intersection, it would knock out the power to a Large section of town and it would take from eight to 12 hours to restore it.” He said the project probably would cost about $3,500. The Lighter Side By DONNY WILDER Chronicle Editor Randy Huff calmly dialed the Fire Department dumber and reported, “Please send a truck to 303 W. Maple St. My neighbor’s house is on fire again.” Randy is a chemistry pro fessor at Presbyterian Col lege but that’s just a front. In real life, he’s my official fire reporter. This was the second fire we’ve had at our house in the two months we’ve been here. What happened Thursday night was that some bulbs in the ceiling set the ceiling on fire. I’m beginning to wonder about these chain letters I’ve been getting. Four days before the first fire, I received a chain let ter which said that good for tune comes to those who con tinue the chain. It doesn’t really say anything bad will happen to you if you break the chain and don’t send it on to others but it does list some rather unfortunate events which occurred in the lives of those who didn’t send the letter on within four days. I’ve tossed mine in the waste basket. Like I said, four days after I received the first letter (and threw it away), I had a house fire. You guessed it, I received another of these chain letters recently — threw it away and had another fire. Everyone seems to be hav ing great fun with my two fires. Some examples of comments from friends: Tom Plaxico: “You’re get ting sorta hard up for news, aren’t you?” Milford Smith: “The Lions Club is going to honor the firemen Dec. 12 and we’d like to have you as a special guest, since you know aU the firemen so well.” Then there’s good old Tom my Stalworth, a neighbor. A fire siren sounded about noon Saturday and Tommy raced across the backyard, bucket in hand and yelled, “Where is it this time?” CHS Band, Whitten Village Win Prizes Clinton area representa tives have done well in Christmas parade competi tion this year. The Whitten Village float won first place in the recent Newberry Christmas parade and the Clinton High School Band won first place in the band competition in the Laurens Parade. Both will participate in to day’s .Clinton Christmas Par ade. ( . Old Rail Station To Be Razed By DONNY WILDER Chronicle Editor One of Clinton’s landmarks, the CN&L Rail road station, is scheduled to be torn down in the not-to-distant future. With its passing will go a building full of memories around which Clinton has grown and prospered. It will be a physical act signifying the end of an era in which the railroad gave birth to a town and nurtured it through adolescent years. An official of the now merged Seaboard and Atlantic Coastline Railroad recently revealed that in the next year the CN&L (Columbia, Newberry* and Laurens) tracks through downtown Clinton will be torn out. Plans call for CN&L trains to be routed through the downtown area on the Sea- board-Atlantic Coastline tracks. Seaboard-ACL now owns controlling interest in the CN&L The CN&L Station hasn’t been kept in attrac tive status in recent years but the building, which is over 100 years old, is sound. It is in bad need of paint but it was constructed to stand. W'alk through the building with Agent F. M. (Blue) Boland Jr. and you can almost see and hear the building’s past. You can easily visualize the long lines of wagons bringing to the railroad farm products to be shipped to Charleston. You can almost hear the rumble of troop trains dur ing times of war. There are still bullet holes in the wall from the night when Clinton’s only policeman happen ed to look in the station window and see some one trying to open the safe. The policeman fired his pistol through the window. The would-be safe cracker fled. That incident supposedly' oceuntd before the turn of the century. The bullet holes are there. Boland isn’t sure when the station was con structed but believes it*was around 1850. The CN&L Railroad was incorporated in 1885 and be gan operation in 1800. However, before that, the station served as Southern Railroad headquarters in Clinton. The station is constructed primarily of straight grain heart of long leaf pine. There are no knots in it. The studs are stabilized by wooden pegs. Handmade nails were used. There are several roofs on the building. Beneath the tin roof which now covers the building, there is at least one layer of shingles which Boland believes were handmade. “Itfs not going to he easy to tear this build ing down,” Boland said, “I don’t believe they can just pull it down. It’s going to have to be taken down piece by piece.” Boland, a collector of antiques, is obviously fond of the building and its history. He has been agent there since 19f>2. Before that, he was tele grapher under the late W. C. Shealy who had been agent since 1927. Boland’s father was agent at the station for between 15 and 20 years before quitting in 1918 to become cashier at Commercial Bank. Boland has a copy of a 1913 passenger train schedule. It shows the CN&L running six passeng er trains a day. One run left Columbia at 11:20 a.m. and arrived in Laurens at 2:20 p.m. There were stops in between at Gervais St. in Colum bia, Irmo, Ballentine, White Rack, Chapin, Little Mountain, Prosperity, Newberry, Kinards, Gold- ville (now Jdanna) and Clinton. . It Was Built With Hand-Made Pegs • •« *" *' • * 4,- , . , . * 1-1 l i