Thirty years ago — 1993

A state plan to build a $3 million day care center for mentally retarded adults on the campus of the Chautauqua County Home in the west town of Dunkirk wasn’t exactly dead today, but it was definitely on life support. The prognosis for the project became doubtful after bids for the structure — designed to care for 100 mentally disabled adults — came in $1 million over budget. With the apparent collapse of the project, county legislators’ main concern is how to get back title to the plot of land adjoining the county home which they had sold to the state last year for $23,000.

Forty years ago — 1983

Guest speaker at the Dunkirk-Fredonia Lioness Club dinner meeting was Twylah Nitsch, who along with her mother and three other women, founded the Seneca Indian Historical Society in 1970. A descendant of the Seneca Chief and Orator Red Jacket, she has written on many aspects of Seneca teaching, with the philosophy that praising and being grateful to nature leads to a positive way of life.

Fifty years ago — 1973

Sheila Allen, a faculty member at Fredonia State University College since 1969, has returned from Cleveland with the first-place award from the Great Lakes Regional Auditions for New York’s Metropolitan Opera.