Maturity Journal - April 2021 Issue

Maturity Journal
Page 8 april 2021
HOMETOWN HISTORY
Tri-State History September1976 to August 1977
By Harold Morgan
September 1976: An anti-busing crowd of 1,200
people in Louisville was tear gassed by police. Smoking
was banned on Evansville city buses. Kent Chevrolet began
rebuilding its burned dealership at Second and Vine
Streets. Patty Hurst, a former kidnap victim, was given a
seven-year prison sentence for armed bank robbery. (She
said she was forced into the robbery.)
October 1976: Barbara Walters was the first woman
TV anchor on the ABC Evening News. Evansville teenagers
were given a community center at St. Joseph Avenue
and Franklin Street; this was a converted IGA market.
The Ray Becker Parkway that would extend St. Joseph
Avenue to the southeast was approved for construction.
The $1.2 million high-tech Evansville airport control
tower off Highway 57 was fully operational and dedicated;
it had been in use since December 1975. Elvis Presley
sang in Roberts Stadium for 13,500 thrilled fans. The
Four-Freedoms Monument was completed on the Evansville
riverfront. Walgreen Drugs bought the former ABC
Discount Center on Washington Avenue.
November 1976: Orr Steel Company closed all operations;
it was Evansville’s oldest business; the Samuel
Orr Company opened on Main Street in 1835. The University
of Evansville received a grant for its Science and
Engineering building. Bob Hope presented an Evansville
Evansville's Four Freedoms Monument was completed
on the riverfront in October 1976. (Willard Library
photo)
show for 1,600 guests in the Executive Inn hotel.
December 1976: Gary Gilmore was executed by firing
squad in Draper, Utah for the murder of a Provo hotel
clerk. Swine flu shots were halted immediately across
America from fear of causing temporary paralysis. Ohio
River traffic was halted for a week or more due to an
11-barge tow crashing into the Dam 51 gates near Golconda,
Illinois. The Vanderburgh County building boom
in 1976 was a record setter.
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