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By JAMES PENTLAND

CHESTERFIELD — Marking its 50th anniversary, Davenport School’s first-grade class of 1974 gathered after the town’s July Fourth parade Thursday to re-create a special photo taken on the school steps.Fire Chief and class member David Hewes said he got...

50 Years Ago■First prize in the Bicentennial slogan contest went to Isabel A. Holden, of 87 Round Hill Road, for her entry, “Northampton — build the best of the past into the future.” The contest was co-sponsored by the Northampton Bicentennial...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — The first-ever Dwight Day on Saturday will celebrate the historic village in northern Belchertown with several history talks, a historical reenactment, and a cemetery tour intended to revive the glory and legacy of those who lived in the...

By STEVE PFARRER

Not long after 20 years of war finally ended in Vietnam in 1975, another wave of horrendous violence erupted just to the west.The Khmer Rouge, the Communist party of Cambodia, seized control of the country and began a brutal “reeducation” campaign...

By JAMES PENTLAND

WILLIAMSBURG — Like many mill owners before and since, the consortium that created the Williamsburg Reservoir in 1866 wanted more power for their factories, and they wanted to pay as little as possible for it.Eight years after the dam began its...

By JIM BRIDGMAN

50 Years Ago ■Three Holyoke youths were rescued from falling off a moving Boston and Maine freight train last night by Northampton policeman Gerald L. LeVitre. The youths had boarded the train in the freight yards in Holyoke and had hung onto the...

By STEVE PFARRER

On the morning of May 16, 1874, the dam on the Williamsburg Reservoir, up in the hills along the East Branch of the Mill River, suddenly collapsed, sending 600 million gallons of water roaring downhill.The flood, which soon became a 30-foot-high brown...

50 Years Ago■Admitting that the state “very obviously” mishandled the Russell Daniels case, Gov. Francis Sargent said Saturday that the developmentally disabled 29-year-old has, in effect, been given a pardon. Sargent said that after Daniels is...

By JIM BRIDGMAN

200 Years AgoMiss B. Fisher offers for sale, at the house of Mr. Alexander Wright on the plain, straw bonnets of all kinds — the latest patterns from Charleston, S.C., Baltimore, and New York. Straws and Leghorns cleansed and repaired, and custom...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

HOLYOKE — A $400,000 restoration of two 23-foot-tall murals at the Broadway-style Victory Theatre, created by Italian immigrant Vincent Maragliotti in 1942, is complete, another step in the process toward reopening the 1920 building that has been...

By JIM BRIDGMAN

50 Years Ago■A city budget of $11,687,698 for the fiscal year July 1, 1974, through June 30, 1975, some $400,000 over last year’s 12-month expenditure, was passed unanimously at last night’s City Council meeting. At some point between now and June the...

50 Years Ago■Robert F. Ulm, Easthampton’s fire chief since 1944, last night submitted his resignation to the Board of Selectmen, to become effective April 20. Ulm said he would become fire chief in the town of Bedford.■The Northampton City Council...

50 Years AgoThe Hampshire Area Commission on Alcohol Abuse will tonight request a lodging house license at 23-25 Graves Ave. for a proposed halfway house for recovered alcoholics. Purchase of the property would culminate an intensive campaign that...

200 Years Ago ■Public Notice! Whereas my wife, Eliza-Ann, has left my bed and board, I hereby forbid all persons harboring or trusting her on my account, as I shall pay no debts of her contracting. — Osborne Mowry, Pelham.■On the 15th of last month, a...

By Jim BridgmanFor the Gazette50 Years AgoThe co-publishers of the Daily Hampshire Gazette said today they have no immediate plans to move the newspaper from its present location at 16 Armory St. Reacting to a report in a Springfield newspaper that...

By STEVE PFARRER

Can the arts help us reexamine our past and come to terms with injustice? Can music, film and other mediums become instruments for social change by helping us look differently at our history and our beliefs?Those are questions the Power of Truths Arts...

50 Years Ago■Life expectancy for the average resident of Hampshire County has reached an all-time high. A child born today to local parents has excellent prospects of living to the middle of the 21st century, even if there is no further improvement in...

By MELISSA KAREN SANCES

On a springlike day in mid-March, three historians’ voices mingle with the buzzing of a drone. Claudia Lefko, Gail Hornstein and Ben James stand in the middle of the Montview Conservation Area while our camera captures the big picture — the vast, open...

50 Years Ago ■Warning against a “headlong rush toward technological disaster,” consumer advocate Ralph Nader told an overflow crowd at the University of Massachusetts yesterday that the use of nuclear power plants is “the beginning of the end of the...

50 Years Ago ■Three streakers who struck in Northampton Saturday night appeared in Hampshire County District Court this morning on charges of indecent exposure. The three were arrested Saturday night on South Street after they darted from John M....