Leonard Alwine of Altoona submitted this photo of Logan Valley Bus No. 46, a 1937 Beaver Model 250, when new at the trolley yard complex. Beaver buses were built in Beaver Falls.

Readers are encouraged to send or deliver old local photographs of general interest for use in Yesteryear. Information about people and places should be included. Photos must be 30 years old or older and should be sent to Yesteryear, Altoona Mirror, P.O. Box 2008, Altoona, PA 16603, or emailed to community@altoonamirror.com. For more information, call Brenda Carberry, community news coordinator, at 814-946-7459.

Local news on this date

Feb. 14, 1951

Giant steel cranes were being used to raise steel girders at the new $1 million National Radiator Plant at Wye Switches. Ragnor-Benson Inc. held the construction contract but many Altoona men worked there.

Feb. 14, 1976

A new manager of the Altoona & Logan Valley Bus Authority named Harry James was hired through the ATE Management Services Co. Inc., which was working under a three-year contract with the authority.

Feb. 14, 2001

The Blair County commissioners were to stop funding the weights and measures inspector and said they would go to a private inspector for the state for the service.

Feb. 14, 2016

PennDOT officials voted to eliminate the license plate stickers on state automobiles starting Jan. 1, 2017, something Logan Township Police Chief Timothy Mercer, along with other area police chiefs, thought was a bad idea.

Feb. 15, 1951

Due to the outbreak of the Korean War, Altoona was one of four Pennsylvania cities chosen to have an Office of Price Control located here, it was announced by the regional office in Philadelphia.

Blair County Farm Agent E.G. Hamill announced the Junior Chicken of Tomorrow Contest to be open tomorrow for boys and girls under 20 years of age. The contestant must raise 100 straight-run chicks or 50 sexed cockerels, which would be wing banded. Entry fee was $1 and 15 birds would be judged at the end of the contest after three months.

Feb. 15, 1976

Andronic Pappas was elected chairman of the Blair County Democratic Party in an election held at the Blair County Courthouse upon the resignation of Robert Russell. Pappas was a former Altoona Mayor and City Councilman.

Both the original 1904 and 1924 addition to the Altoona Hospital Nurses residence were being demolished as part of the hospital’s $23.8 million building program with work done by the Mown Demolition Co. of Carrolltown. The George Fuller Co. of Chicago was the general contractor.

Feb. 15, 2001

The Altoona Curve downgraded its planned “Al Roker is Stupid Day” at Blair County Ballpark to “Al Roker gets Educated Day” when the Today Show weatherman, who called Curve mascot Steamer stupid when he appeared at Rockefeller Center in New York, sent an apologetic telegram to Altoona.

Chester Geist of Tyrone presented his wife Jessica with a box of candy from Gardners Candies, as he had every year since 1936. The couple married in 1937. Jessica had saved all the boxes. Mayor Pat Stoner declared Chester and Jessica Geist Day in the borough.

Feb. 15, 2016

Jim Brown, president of J.K. Brown Construction Inc. of Hollidaysburg, was elected president of the Pennsylvania Builders Association, of which he was a former vice president and secretary.

Judge D. Brooks Smith of Altoona gave an interview to the Altoona Mirror about U.S. Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia, whom he had known personally for about 30 years. Scalia died Feb. 13 in Texas.

National, world news on this date

Feb. 14:

In 1876, inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray applied separately for patents related to the telephone. (The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled Bell the rightful inventor.)

In 1929, the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone’s gang were gunned down.

In 1984, 6-year-old Stormie Jones became the world’s first heart-liver transplant recipient when the surgery was performed at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. The girl died in 1990 at age 13.

In 2013, double-amputee Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his home in Pretoria, South Africa, saying he mistook her for an intruder; he was later convicted of murder and served nearly nine years of a sentence of 13 years and five months before being released from prison in January 2024.

Feb. 15:

In 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a law allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1898, the battleship USS Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain.

In 1950, Walt Disney’s animated film “Cinderella” premiered in Boston.

In 1961, 73 people, including all 18 members of the U.S. figure skating team en route to the World Championships in Czechoslovakia, were killed in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium.

In 1978, boxer Leon Spinks scored a massive upset as he defeated Muhammad Ali by split decision to become the world heavyweight champion.

In 1989, the Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.

Local news compiled by Tim Doyle. National, world news from The Associated Press.