Oct. 13, 2000: Concord developer Steve Duprey announces the new conference center at Horseshoe Pond will be named for the Grappone family, who “stood out among all our wonderful donors.” The Grappones donated more than $700,000 to the project.
Oct. 13, 1987: The temperature in Concord falls to 22 degrees, a record low.
Oct. 15, 2002: Concord High juniors get the news that their statewide test scores rose significantly in all four subjects on the test, with the most notable jumps in language arts and math. In an effort to boost scores during the testing period in May, the school adopted a controversial reward system for students who took the test. Rewards included bagels, yogurt and McDonald’s apple pies.
Oct. 15, 2000: About 1,800 people take part in Concord’s leg of the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk. The local event raises $157,000 for research.
Oct. 15, 1851: Philip C. Hunt is caught in a belt and carried around the shafting of a Penacook mill, mangling one leg and one arm badly, from which he never fully recovers. He lives until 1858.
Oct. 16, 2002: One hundred senior citizens gather for a ground-breaking ceremony for the city’s first senior center.
Oct. 16, 2001: Citing safety concerns relating to the Sept. 11 attacks, the Steeplegate Mall cancels its annual trick-or-treat night.
Oct. 16, 1975: The Reagan for President campaign opens a headquarters at the New Hampshire Highway Hotel in Concord. Hotel owner Matthew Morton agrees to a temporary replacement of the wording on the huge sign atop the building from “Highway Hotel” to “Reagan for President,” creating an ostentatious precedent for future political candidates.
Oct. 17, 2002: Jane Berwick, who has volunteered with the Concord Boys and Girls Club, the Capitol Center for the Arts, the United Way and the Kiwanis, among others, is named Citizen of the Year by the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce at the group’s 83rd annual dinner in Concord.
Oct. 17, 1908: Robert Abial “Red” Rolfe is born in Penacook. He will play baseball with the New York Yankees from 1934 to 1942 and be hailed by many as the team’s best third baseman ever. His career will bridge those of Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio. He will bat .293 lifetime and play in six World Series. After retiring as an active player, he will coach baseball and basketball at Yale, coach professionally in both sports, manage the Detroit Tigers and serve as athletic director at Dartmouth College.
Oct. 17, 1988: A developer announces plans for a shopping center on the edge of Concord’s South End Marsh, an environmentally sensitive area. The project will not be built; other unsuccessful attempts to develop the area will follow.
Oct. 17, 1939: David Souter is born in Melrose, Mass. He will attend Concord High and Harvard and eventually rise to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oct. 17, 1973: Concord officials meet to discuss ways to improve conditions on Concord Heights, after a $25,000 consultant points out: “There’s no village center, no coherence, no meeting place. There’s no there when you get there.”
Oct. 18, 2001: Nearly 100 people attend a Concord hearing on a proposed zoning ordinance. Residents discuss proposed development in the Penacook Lake watershed and floodplain concerns about commercial development in Penacook.
Oct. 18, 1988: Attorney Ray D’Amante announces the name of Concord’s soon-to-be-built mall: Steeplegate. Concord, he says, is a city of steeples and they will be incorporated into the mall as a prominent design feature.
Oct. 18, 1965: Gov. John King urges state lawmakers to approve tearing down a 70-year-old tower atop the state library at the corner of Park and North State streets. He calls it “an architectural monstrosity.”
Oct. 19, 2002: Franklin Pierce Law Center holds the fifth annual Bruce E. Friedman Community Service Day in honor of the late professor. More than 90 students, professors and family members volunteer at the school and throughout the community.
Oct. 19, 1920: Weeks before the election, Gov. James M. Cox of Ohio, the Democratic presidential nominee, speaks from a platform beneath the Lafayette elm on the State House lawn. Cox, a chief proponent of the League of Nations, assails Warren G. Harding, the Republican nominee, for claiming that France opposes the League. “The facts justify the conclusion that Sen. Harding has stupidly though deliberately attempted to deceive the people of the United States,” Cox says. He blames the Senate for politicizing the issue, saying that until recently Americans saw the League of Nations as “the voice of God speaking to the consciences of the world.” With the Monitor’s support, Harding will win the election, easily carrying Concord and New Hampshire.
