Summaries of local news stories from the pages of the Intelligencer Journal and Lancaster New Era appear in this space each Monday. They are researched and compiled by staff member Tim Buckwalter. Full versions are available on microfilm at the Lancaster County Library, 125 N. Duke St.

25 years ago

MRI ON WAY: Two Lancaster hospitals were hoping to obtain a high-priced, experimental diagnostic tool known as MRI, which some said would outdo the revolutionary CAT scanner in spotting disease. Lancaster General and St. Joseph hospitals were hoping to put the $3 million Magnetic Resonance Imaging device into use by mid-1986. (July 20, 1984)

CHEAP LOANS: Seventeen Lancaster County lending institutions were participating in a new state program that offered $190 million in home mortgages at below-market interest rates. First-time homebuyers accepted into the program would be eligible for 30-year mortgages with a fixed interest rate of 12.09 percent, or about 3 percentage points below conventional rates. (July 24, 1984)

FARMS SAVED: The Lancaster County Commissioners, following up promises with dollars, paid $53,600 to preserve three first-class farms in northern Lancaster County. The action was the first of its kind anywhere in Pennsylvania. It launched a new and critical phase of the county’s carefully constructed preservation program. Amos Funk, chairman of the county’s farmland preservation board, said agricultural zoning alone was not enough to protect farms. “The problem with local zoning is that when development pressures mount, it is collapsed like a house of cards,” Funk said. (July 25, 1984)

50 years ago

STUDENT AT 84: It’s never too late to learn, said 84-year-old Roger G. Harley of Morgantown, W.Va., who started summer classes at Millersville State Teachers College. Harley had first come to Millersville 62 years earlier to take teaching courses. He was returning to obtain a degree. “As long as a person lives, he wants to be learning something,” the grandfather of five said. “When he reaches a point where he can’t learn anything, he is ready to die.”  (July 20, 1959)

HIGHLAND PLANS: Architectural sketches of the new Highland Presbyterian Church building along Oregon Pike won approval from the congregation following a morning worship service. Members approved a chapel and L-shaped church school wing estimated to cost $220,000, including land. (July 20, 1959)

TOURIST BUREAU: As it entered its second year of operation, Lancaster County’s Pennsylvania Dutch Tourist Bureau was reported to be out of the woods financially and operating in the black, with $500 cash on hand. (July 21, 1959)

TOUGH TRIP: A vacation to the Dominican Republic and Haiti turned into a harrowing experience for New Era reporter Andrew Torchia and his wife and 8-year-old son, who encountered numerous military checkpoints and delays during the 250-mile drive from Ciudad Trujillo to Port-au-Prince, across the island of Hispaniola. A band of exiles had invaded the Dominican Republican a few weeks earlier, leading to a simmering revolt and political unrest, which had been downplayed by a tourist agency that rented the Torchias a car. During their vacation, the Torchias also stayed at the Jaragua, the hotel housing Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban leader who had been ousted by Fidel Castro several months earlier. “I could not obtain an interview with the ex-dictator, although I knocked on his door twice a day for four days,” Torchia wrote in a New Era article about this trip. (July 25, 1959.)

75 years ago

ENROLLMENT: Lancaster County had 28,265 pupils enrolled in public schools, not including Lancaster City and Columbia, and 307 one-room rural schools, the New Era reported. Boys outnumbered girls slightly in the elementary schools, but girls outnumbered boys in the high schools, 3,090 to 2,830. There were 843 teachers, supervisors and principals, with 644 of them women and 199 men. Of the total, 253 had college certificates. (July 25, 1934)

100 years ago

PEDESTRIAN HIT: After striking a pedestrian at the corner of East King and Duke streets, a local grain dealer was charged with operating an automobile without a license. The victim had several fractured ribs, as well as head and leg injuries, but was said to be recovering well. (July 21, 1909)

BIG BLAST: City residents were awakened at 3 a.m. by a dynamite explosion that blew up a toolhouse at the stone quarries of the Conestoga Traction Company, near the east end of the Conestoga River bridge on the Rocky Springs trolley line. Investigators believed the murder of a caretaker was the perpetrator’s goal, but the caretaker happened to be away that night and no one was injured. (July 21 and 22, 1909)