BABY BOOMER MEMORIES
Gordon Swirsky was the longtime owner of the Photo Shop, the primary place in the Berkshires for baby boomers to get their first camera.
On March 10, 1969: James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in Memphis, Tenn., to assassinating civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (Ray later repudiated that plea, maintaining his innocence until his death.)
The Paris name apparently came about as the latest and most popular women’s fashions at the time were created in Paris.
In the years after World War II, fresh bread and baked products were delivered to many homes by a few major bakers until the mid- to late 1950s.
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Following grand jury indictment, Berkshire Superior Court arraignment of woman accused of killing grandmother in North Adams is delayed
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James Brooke: After two failed Russian offensives, China steps in
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Pittsfield resident Jon Kane had a St. Patrick's Day gig in upstate NY. Then TV host Jimmy Fallon sat in for an after-hours set
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Antojitos Oaxaca, a Mexican food eatery in Lee, has closed
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Three people injured after police say a man causes two traffic accidents, one in Dalton and another later in Pittsfield
Mysteries from the Morgue
Did the first written account of maple sugar being made in this country come from the Berkshires? "It Happened First in Berkshire," a column of The Berkshire Eagle, declared it as so April 3, 1940: …
Nor'easter expected? Blizzard in the forecast? Either prediction is a sure sign that media outlets will dig up photos and facts from historic storms of years past. Sure to be included are the Blizzard of 1888 and the Blizzard of 1978. But were those the worst storms to hit the Berkshires? To find out, we hit The Eagle's archives.
On Oct. 18, 1918, 700 workers of the Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing Co. were out sick with "the grippe," silencing a third of the Berkshire Mills' 6,500 looms.
Three weeks earlier, the town had reported its first cases of Spanish influenza — 16 sick and one death. Now, the town had 850 recorded cases and 28 deaths from the Spanish flu or flu-related pneumonia. But, town health officials suspected the number was much higher, around 2,000 infected individuals.
Only a few things could separate the Pierce twins — a broken shoulder, a marriage and death.
Mary Abbe and Martha Anne, who held the title of "oldest twins in New England" from January 1929 until August 1934, spent the majority of their 90 years together, living in the house in which they were born in Savoy.
Mysteries From the Morgue: Against the vote? The Anti-Susan B. Anthony also came from the Berkshires
On Saturday, Nov. 5, 1932, just days before the presidential election, Anna Laurens Dawes, 81, known as the "grand lady of Pittsfield," took to the airwaves to urge every Republican to head to the polls that Tuesday.
Being from the Berkshires, birthplace of the most famous suffragette, Susan B. Anthony, Dawes' ardent push for voters to head to the polls doesn't seem out of place — until you consider she, just a dozen years prior, was the leading anti-suffragette of Western Massachusetts, if not the state.
Lucretia Williams, hearing the ax sing, rushed from her nearby home into the center of town and thrust herself between the axeman and the tree, declaring, “You will have to cut through me first.”
NORTH ADAMS — Anna Helen (Crofts) McCuen lived a secret literary life.
The crowd gathered at the Hinsdale Mining Co. on Oct. 7, 1899, held its breath as the hammer fell upon the clay crucible in the center of the room. It cracked, splinters flying into the air, as a …
SAVOY — Bent and twisted trees are not an unusual site in Berkshire County, thanks to Natalie Jeremijenko's "Tree Logic" at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The art installation's …
SAVOY — "She must have been beautiful once, for weatherbeaten as she is, she is very fine looking, and her straight nose and black bright eyes bear evidence of better days ... She is amazingly …
During the summer of 1933, Otis was invaded by a nudist cult.At least that's how a headline in the Boston Globe on May 24, 1933, described the pending establishment of a nudist colony in the township …
ADAMS — When an MTV logo was painted across the front of the Wellspeak's home in August 1988, it wasn't part of some elaborate prank. The graffiti-style logo, in various shades of green and …
Today in History
On March 22, 1894: Hockey’s first Stanley Cup championship game was played; home team Montreal defeated Ottawa, 3-1.
This Story in History
From the Eagle Archives
Eagle Archives, March 22, 1960: Men have a very silly notion that women carry a needless amount of — well, some call it junk — in their handbags. The author has the statistics to prove them wrong.
Eagle Archives, March 21, 1942: In November 1775, Col. Henry Knox started out on a 400-mile expedition which was to prove of vital importance to the ultimate recapture of Boston from the English.
Eagle Archives, March 20, 1970: A scroll in Hebrew of the Book of Esther, which was given some years ago to the Berkshire Museum, has been authenticated as an 18th century scroll, probably from Morocco or Tunisia in North Africa.