Each week, the Gazette looks back on stories from the past. Here is what happened this week, by year…

1911

• Only the charred timbers remain of the big coal sheds, along the harbor used by Nelson Ostrander, when in the coal and wood business. All was burned to the ground in the spectacular 2 a.m. fire Saturday. When the fire was direst discovered, the flames had gained big headway, and the sheds were like a roaring furnace.
• B. R. Hepburn is now M. P. Prince Edward got in on the ground floor with the landslide that swept over Canada, and B. R. Hepburn, Conservative candidate, won the election with 251 majority over Dr. Morley Currie, former Liberal M. P. 
• Rain, cold and generally threatening weather threatens to kill the prospects for the 59th annual Exhibition of the Prince Edward Agricultural Society. The weather man, however, hands out promises of fairer, warmer weather, and perhaps today will balance up for yesterday’s bad turn.

1951

• A crowd of between 1,500 and 2,000 overflowed the grandstand on Labor day when stock car races were held at the Fair Grounds. Weather was almost ideal following a heavy rain over the week-end. The races were the best yet and provided the crowd with plenty of excitement.
• A lively two hours of fun and music is being presented each night of Picton Fair on Thursdays, Friday and Saturday nights next week in the Shantymen’s Concert. The songs, music, jokes, tall tales and bucksaw contest are typical of the evenings spent in the backwoods’ shanties.
• Vernon Wheeler, Ferguson Street, Picton, caught two muskies on Tuesday of last week. The bigger weighed 28 pounds and the other 13 pounds. Again on Saturday, he landed another, a 14-pounder. All were taken off Editor L. B. Calnan’s shore, not far from the inner harbor.

1971

• The recently rejoined debate over the sand quarry activities at the famous Sandbanks Provincial Park calls for a full review of the facts. The issue was brought to public attention as a result of letters to the editor in a Toronto daily newspaper, written by concerned tourists who fear that continued hauling away of sand will jeopardize the goal of preserving this unique geological formation.
• The “best of memory” source for reporting in Friday’s paper that the forthcoming visit to Picton by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is the first in many years from a federal prime minister wasn’t quite good enough. Former Mayor H. J. McFarland has a memory that’s better.
• A booming first week of business is reported by officials at the new Quinte Mall at Belleville. With electric eye counters, 46,000 cars were recorded at the huge parking lot. Based on an average of three persons per car, the first week’s crowd totalled about 138.000 customers.

1981

• The Molson’s Prince Edward Gold Cup, Saturday Sept. 5 and Sunday, Sept. 6, in Picton  Ontario is expected to draw one of the largest fields of Grand Prix Class Hydro Planes on the North American Circuit this year.
• Picton police are warning local businessmen to be on the lookout for an advertising service solicitation that may easily be mistaken for a Bell Canada Yellow Pages invoice. So far several firms in the area have reported receiving the notices to which are attached clipped advertisements from the Bell directory.
• Prince Edward County Men’s softball League playoffs continued Sunday with the Wellington Warriors nipping the Milford Seniors by a 2 to 1 count to even the best of five series for the “B” Championship at one game apiece.