July 3, 1990: Stalled for four years in his effort to build a huge housing project and luxury golf course on Concord’s Broken Ground, Vermonter Barry Stem announces plans to build a 200-room hotel and conference center and a 300,000-square-foot office park on part of the site.
July 4, 1899: Ten thousand people attend the dedication of the Memorial Arch in front of the State House. Cut from Concord granite, it is 33 feet 8 inches high and 53 feet wide. Though built on state land, it was paid for by the city and commemorates Concord’s war veterans.
July 4, 1842: Hooligans set a barrel of tar on fire in the State House plaza. “The tossing of fire-balls had begun when the police of this town interfered,” according to a city history.
July 4, 1891: A crowd of 6,000 to 7,000 people gathers at the circus grounds just above Bridge Street along the Merrimack River to watch a holiday baseball game. The Concord YMCA team, a perennial power, defeats the Concord Stars, 13-12. “Fielding at times was rather loose,” the Monitor reports.
July 5, 1874: Prominent Concord lawyer Anson Southard Marshall dies of a gunshot wound. The previous day, Marshall took his wife and young son for a Fourth of July picnic near Lake Penacook. The family heard target shooting by a militia company nearby. Marshall stood to call to the shooters and request that they be careful. He was immediately shot in the abdomen.
July 5, 2002: Ted Williams, the legendary Boston Red Sox outfielder, dies at the age of 83. Local fan Tony Heath, owner of Quality Cash Market in East Concord, reflects “We shared the same dream. That was to see the Red Sox win the World Series. It’s too bad he didn’t live to see that happen.”
July 6, 1849: The Legislature officially gives Concord permission to become a full-fledged city. One big argument in favor of abandoning the town meeting form of government is that there is no place big enough to accommodate all the town’s voters.
July 6, 1941: With a crowd of 60,948 jamming Yankee Stadium for the dedication of a monument to Lou Gehrig, Gehrig’s former teammate and bridge partner, Red Rolfe of Penacook, hits three singles and a homer in the first game of a doubleheader sweep. Yankee center fielder Joe DiMaggio extends his hitting streak to 48 games. Rolfe is in a hot spell of his own. Over eight games, he will get hits in 28 at-bats.
July 7, 1847: President James Polk visits Concord, prompting a parade of bands up Main Street. “The streets were alive with sightseers and from the windows, ladies greeted the president with waving handkerchiefs,” one newspaper reports.
July 8, 1965: Construction of a new King’s Department Store begins on Loudon Road in Concord. Plans also call for a supermarket and five smaller stores.
July 9, 1964: Monitor columnist Leon Anderson takes U.S. Rep. Louis Wyman to task for calling the country’s new civil rights law “a bucket of worms.” He writes: “Most of us do not mind Wyman being in disagreement with some of our thinking, at times. But we also have standards of conduct, especially in public life, which have no place for such foul language. If Wyman kicks the bucket in his second-term bid, we dare suggest his ill-phrased ‘bucket of worms’ will have been the final straw.”
July 9, 1992: Bob Tewksbury of Concord is named to the National League All- Star team.
July 9, 2000: The new owner of the May King restaurant on Concord’s Loudon Road plans a total makeover, the Monitor reports. The renovated restaurant, to be called Ginger Garden, will offer Chinese and Japanese cuisine, including the capital city’s first sushi bar.
July 9, 2003: Summer school begins at the State House, as lawmakers try to write a budget that can pass into law. The session comes after Gov. Craig Benson stamped a big red VETO on the Legislature’s $2.6 billion budget and succeeded in blocking an override.
