July Smallpox Scare of 1905

From the newspaper archives of the Times Dispatch:

Two guards were yesterday ordered to patrol that section of the City south of Spring Street and east of Belvidere Street, where citizens have been exposed to the disease.

Dr. W.T. Oppenheimer, President of the Board of Health, and Mayor McCarthy held a conference yesterday morning and decided that it was imperative to have the guards placed on the infected section of Oregon Hill to see that no one entered the houses that were quarantined.

At the risk of being alarmist, history does tend to repeat itself, and citizens should be prepared.

Trash Problem on Idlewood

From this past Tuesday

From this past Tuesday


From this past Saturday

From this past Saturday

Despite multiple communications over the past year with the City’s Public Works and Community Development, as well as letters to the property owner, this trash pile remains a sore spot. Its right along the sidewalk and its one of the first things people see when they enter into the neighborhood from the west. Visitors to the Tuesday Byrd House Market often have to walk around it. Despite City Code violations, the trash cans are hardly ever taken away from the street back to the residents’ yards. Really, one easy solution would be to create a trash containment area along the alley which goes north behind the residences just a few yards away, and make sure residents use it. City trash trucks are supposed to be picking up from the back alleys in the neighborhood. The owner of these row houses which face the 200 block of S. Cherry, is a man named Hugh Edmunds. He continues to rent to VCU students while he lives over in the Windsor Farms neighborhood.

There have also been multiple noise complaints about these houses over the past few years, with at least one being on the Richmond police CAPS list. Sadly, some of the longtime residents on the 300 block of S. Cherry have moved away in part to the ongoing nuisances.

Years ago, I used to attend parties at 238 S. Cherry when Mike Gangloff lived there. Mike ran his own record label, Radioactive Rat, from that house. Sometimes he would even have bands play there. He made a point of warning neighbors a few days before and making sure the loudness was over before midnight. Then we would QUIETLY hang out while enjoying a few of Mike’s excellent homebrew pumpkin ales.