21 WFMJ  archives / Jan. 20, 1978 | Forty-eight years ago, January brought the Blizzard of 1978 to the Mahoning Valley. Clearing the overnight snow from the sidewalk on Champion Street in front of the City Centre One building downtown was not easy work in the early morning hours of Jan. 20.

January 22

2001: Eleanor Booher, who lives on Newbern Street on Youngstown's South Side, says the city is doing nothing to break a pattern that is leading to neighborhood blight: An older owner dies, the house is sold cheaply to a buyer who rents it out but doesn't maintain it. She calls for the city to enforce housing codes to protect neighborhoods.

Youngstown police find the bodies of Margaret Simon, 23, and Antoine Barnett, 27, in the front seat of a car in the driveway of 1350 Berwick Avenue. It appears someone in the backseat of the Buick shot both occupants in the head and fled, leaving the back door open. 

Carol Gordon, executive director of the Trumbull County Convention and Visitors Bureau for 12 years, says she learned she had been fired from a newspaper story about a closed meeting of the executive board. 

 

1986: New car and truck sales increased by 12.7 percent in 1985 in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, boosted by buyer incentives. A total of 23,628 new cars and 3,846 new trucks were sold in the two counties. Chevrolet sold the most, followed by Oldsmobile, Ford, Pontiac, and Buick. 

On the first official Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Youngstown black leaders renew their call for one of the city's schools to be named after the slain civil rights leader.

While attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C., Youngstown's Patrick J. Ungaro says he will meet with federal officials to push for funding for various city projects. 

 

1976: Merch Moga, 62, who was badly burned in a fire at Hotel Ohio, dies in St. Elizabeth Hospital. Dr. Nathan D. Belinky,  Mahoning County coroner, ruled the death accidental. 

Robbers pistol-whip and shoot Harold Sacherman, 49, proprietor of the Factory Shoe Store at 231 W. Federal St. He is in satisfactory condition in St. Elizabeth Hospital.

U.S. Sen. Robert A. Taft Jr. attends the swearing-in of his son, Robert A. Taft II, as a Republican state representative in the 65th District. 

  

1951: Natural gas supplies to Eastern Ohio industries are cut severely, crippling some plants, including those in Youngstown, where the temperature is as low as 5 degrees.

The federal government sets aside more steel for defense purposes in a move that will mean less steel for autos, appliances, and other non-defense uses.

Proponents of the Lake Erie-Ohio River conveyor belt cite national defense as an impelling reason for this session of the Ohio General Assembly to authorize its construction.