Twenty years ago — 1998

Veterans turned out in force recently for an open house in celebration of the new Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic at The Resource Center’s Primary Care Clinic, located at 186 Lake Shore Drive West in Dunkirk. Although officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs Western New York Healthcare System had expected a crowd of about 150 people for the event, a total of 312 veterans attended the open house and enrolled in the VA health care system. Staff members scrambled to accommodate the unexpectedly large turnout and the event was prolonged an extra hour. The clinic will be affiliated with the VA Medical Center in Buffalo.

Thirty years ago — 1988

From Just Between Us ….. Yvonne Voss of Fredonia recently won a blue ribbon and the judges’ vote for “Best Effort” with her entry (petit fours) in the annual Culinary Arts Food Show staged by the Food Service Department of Alfred State College’s School of Vocational Studies. The daughter of Elizabeth M. Voss, 2 Norton Place, Fredonia and Louis R. Voss of Shorewood Drive, Dunkirk, Yvonne is a 1986 graduate of Fredonia High School and a dean’s list student at the two-year college. She also is a member of its Sigma Tau Epsilon scholastic honor society.

Forty years ago — 1978

John DeFries, works manager, has released details on the 1977 operation of the Dunkirk plant of AL Tech Specialty Steel Corp. At year’s end, there were 1,077 people employed at the Dunkirk plant who were paid a total of $23,731,292 in wages, salaries and fringe benefits. The average wage paid to hourly employees was $10.26 per hour, including incentive pay, overtime, vacation pay and other fringe benefits paid directly to hourly employees. This amounts to an average of $19,699 per year in wages and direct fringe benefits paid to hourly employees. In addition, there was a total of $3.22 per hour in indirect fringe benefits. Total employment costs, therefore, were $13.48 per hour.

Fifty years ago — 1968

The firm of M. Wile and Co., located on East Chestnut Street in Dunkirk, has expanded for the purpose of training and retraining employees on the operation of the power machines used in the manufacture of men’s trousers. The addition to the existing plant was constructed late in 1966 and has since been put to use as a training room.