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Article: ON A DIFFERENT TRACK
- Article from:
- Roanoke Times & World News
- Article date:
- July 5, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2009 Roanoke Times & World News. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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From his porch, 74-year-old Frank Howard sees a field.
He recalls how his family grew tomatoes there and packed them in
a steamy cannery out back.
Howard scalded the red fruit in water, among other jobs. Local
farm women peeled the still-hot tomatoes. After the tomatoes were
packed in tin cans and the cans cooked in a vat of boiling water,
Howard's mother applied a red-and-blue label saying "Mountain
Beauty" with flour paste.
A truck driver hauled cases of tomatoes to grocery stores and to
train stations for shipping.
Just up the road was the Green Hill meat-packing plant, another
prosperous industry.
Norfolk Southern Corp. intends to turn this same ground adjacent
to U.S. 11/460 into an ...