The summer of 1958 was a busy time for the town and especially its police and firefighters.
There was an attempted armed robbery at the Howard Johnson restaurant (near the end of South Main Street near Bypass Road, now typically referred to as Route 125). Police Officers Richard Caldwell and Warren Maddox were routinely checking the back of the building at 10 p.m. when a waitress came outside and informed them there was an armed man at the cash register near the front of the restaurant. Caldwell walked around the building and came quietly through the front door. There were 100 patrons at the counter and tables. With his gun drawn, Caldwell walked up behind the man and told him to drop his gun. As the robber turned toward Caldwell, he still had the gun in his hand, and the officer took a .38-caliber revolver away from him. Meanwhile, Maddox was covering the back to prevent an escape. The arrested man was an unemployed hotel worker from Roxbury.
In another police incident, two carloads of men leaving a Friday night dance in Lawrence stopped off Wildwood Road in Andover allegedly for the purpose of having a fight. Eleven men and a juvenile were arrested by Officers Jacob Jacobson and Jim Gorrie, with help from a state police officer. The arrested men pled guilty to disturbing the peace.
Two house fires marked the beginning and the end of the summer. Early in the season, the Lybrand house on Shawsheen Road burned and Deputy Chief John Cole was removed from the building while unconscious. Call Fireman Forrest Noyes suffered a puncture wound in his arm. Both men recovered. The Kiernan house on West Knoll Road burned in August and eight firefighters were injured. All but one, James R. Deyermond, was released from the hospital the next day. Mr. Deyermond was listed in "good" condition and later recovered.
Growth and taxes, always hot topics, were on the front burners of town politics. Just before the summer, a Townsman banner headline read, "Town In Tizzy Over Property Revaluation." The sub-headline was, "Tempers Go Up In Proportion To Increased Values, Taxes." Just over $15 of the $26 tax rate was for schools. It was the first time that more than 50 percent of tax revenue would be spent on schools. The year before it had been 45 percent. South School was nearing completion and would be ready for the new school year. A debate over merit pay for teachers continued throughout the summer.
The town was trying to slow residential growth while expanding industrial growth to control taxes. Three hundred to 500 houses were planned for West Andover. An editorial in the Townsman called for a full-time inspector to make sure all the town board requirements were fulfilled by builders.
The dream of having the Sylvania-Corning Nuclear Plant locate in Andover had ended just before 1958 when Syl-Cor announced it was dropping its option to purchase the Shattuck Farm. It cited difficult regulatory procedures in this country and cutbacks in federal spending for peaceful atomic energy. (Andover was bitterly disappointed, but it was a good lesson; never again would it suffer such ebullience at the thought of a particular company coming to town. From 1958 on, it pursued industrial growth in a more sophisticated, managed way.)
Urban renewal was beginning to rear its ugly head in 1958. Urban renewal plans at the beginning of the summer were grandiose and its advocates, led by the Andover National Bank, received a commitment from the federal government to pay two-thirds of the overall cost of $2,266,000, leaving the town to pay $755,000 of the total ($1 in 1958 equals $7.45 in 2008). The plan would have replaced all of the downtown and immediately surrounding areas. By the end of the summer, the scope of the project was cut back. In the end, urban renewal was a horse with no legs and was defeated, but not without some hard feelings.
The Town House was undergoing extensive repairs to its roof. (Meanwhile, Andover was still trying to find a location for a new municipal building and most people wanted the old Town House torn down.)
In June 1958, the first class to graduate from the new Andover High School on Shawsheen Road had as its graduation theme, "Are Our Cultural Values Deteriorating?" Ruth Borden Slade's valedictorian presentation was, "Cultural Re-awakening: The Rise of the Individual." Salutatorian Sheila Serio's speech was, "Beginning An Ideal Culture." (Was this the first wave of the '60s generation?)
A full-page ad announced store hours downtown. Center merchants would be open Friday nights until 9 but closed Mondays (and Sundays, of course). Elm Farm, a 40-store supermarket chain, announced plans to build a shopping center on the Schlott property on North Main Street (where Market Basket now is).
Parking meters required the use of a nickel instead of a penny.
The construction of the new Route 28 (soon to be renamed Route 93 and then I-93) was moving quickly and was open from Lowell Street south. Plans for the new Route 110 (later to be I-495) were just beginning. Dr. Richard Lindsay, the son of Selectman and Mrs. Stafford Lindsay, announced the opening of Andover Animal Hospital at 233 Lowell St. One hundred forty-two luxury garden apartments were planned for the corner of High and Haverhill streets.
Andover began to use dial telephones for the first time on Aug. 17. The old switchboard dated back to 1914. Sid White, the selectmen chairman, placed the first long distance call on the new system and hooked up with San Francisco in 16 seconds. The Andover Townsman said on its front page that its new number was GR5 1943, replacing the old telephone number, 1943.
The AHS Class of '58 will have its 50th reunion this autumn. I've been asked why the name "Punchard High School" was dropped in 1957 and why the nickname "The Blue Devils" was ended a few years later. I have found some answers and hope to be able to get them to you soon. If you have any information, please contact me.
Bill Dalton writes a weekly column for the Townsman and can be reached at billdalton@andovertownie.com.
