21 WFMJ archives  / July 9, 1955 | Hundreds of youngsters turned out to watch the parade of elephants down Mahoning Avenue from the West Avenue loading docks to the Meridian Road showgrounds when the Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey circus arrived in town 69 years ago.

July 22

1999: The State Correctional Facility at Mercer, Pa., is given a 1995 Eagle Talon race car for use in the prison's auto mechanic training program. The vehicle was part of the Chrysler Corp.'s production racing team and ran in the Sports Car Club of America World Challenge Series.

Sales were down, but net income was up at Cold Metal Products in the second quarter of the year. On sales of $51.1 million, net income was $1.1 million.

Carlos Bonilla, an illegal alien charged with two murders in a case that carried the death penalty, is sentenced to eight to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to lower charges in the shooting deaths of Miguel Rosado, 29, and Gerald Marshall, 22.

1984: Petitions are being circulated to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages in some precincts of Cortland, which has been dry since Prohibition.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency says Trumbull County's only landfill in Fowler, operated by Francis Kish, is meeting its initial requirements for continued licensing.

Vindicator politics writer Bertram de Souza says Ohio delegates to the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco suffered sticker shock. The lowest-priced room at the Hyatt on Union Square costs $119 a night, and bacon cheeseburgers cost $7.50.

1974: Nearly 8,800 members of Local 1112 United Autoworkers of America begin registering for strike benefits after another session with GM negotiators shows little progress toward solving the 10-day-old strike at Lordstown.

Kathy Dalesandro, 19, of Liberty, is chosen Miss Youngstown in a pageant held in Niles to select a local representative in the Miss World competition.

1949: Thousands of Shriners are expected to converge on Youngstown in August for a big parade and ceremony of Al Koran Temple that will be attended by Harold Lloyd, a movie producer and comedian recently elected imperial Shrine potentate.

A sewer gas explosion shakes Youngstown's East Side and sends two teenage boys to the South Side unit of the Youngstown Hospital with second-degree burns. The boys had lighted a match while trying to find a baseball that went into the sewer and ignited the blast.