21 WFMJ archives  / December 1973 | Youngstown's Christmas tree stood against a backdrop of construction work continuing on the new Federal Plaza 51 years ago. 

December 6


1999: Youngstown Mayor George McKelvey and U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. are putting aside their past differences to make a $42 million downtown multi-purpose arena a reality.


Almost every school district in the Mahoning Valley struggles to find substitute school bus drivers. This shortage began developing over four years after a commercial driver's license became required.


The brothers of the Phi Theta Phi fraternity at Thiel College raised more than $48,000 in their annual walk-a-thon for Pittsburgh Children's Hospital, with nearly $1 million raised over the walk's 33-year history. 


1984: Al Bold, president of Niles Building Products, tells city council that an incentive package offering lower electric rates could help lure a Sharon Company with 50 jobs into one of NBP's empty buildings on Hunter Street.

Youngstown area residents awoke to seven inches of snow on the ground as the first major storm of the winter closed schools and snarled traffic.

Ministers of 10 churches in Champion Township in Trumbull County formed a Committee for Decency to persuade area businesses to stop selling what they describe as pornographic magazines. 


1974: Youngstown Embroidery Guild Women present a needlework flag to Edward Hulme, director of the Mahoning-Youngstown Bicentennial Commission. The flag will hang in the commission's Federal Plaza office.

Eleven buses bringing students to Jackson-Milton School are turned back by striking teachers who blocked the driveway.

The nation's unemployment rate is 6.5 percent, the highest in 13 years. 


1949: The Youngstown Board of Education institutes temporary cost of living adjustments into the salary scale, bringing the minimum salary to $2,400 and the maximum to $4,050 for a bachelor's degree and $4,150 for a master's.

J.M. Schlendorf, vice president of Republic Steel Corp., the Mahoning Valley's biggest employer, says the outlook for the steel industry in 1950 is excellent.


Idora Park officials are discussing plans to build a new arena beside the swimming pool. The arena would be used for indoor boxing and wrestling matches.