Chris Craft cruisers under construction in the Salisbury plant. The boat manufacturer formally "mothballed" the facility 47 years ago this week.

-- Monday, Sept. 7, 1970 --

• The Boat Division of Chris Craft Industries announced it will “mothball” its Salisbury plant. The company said a mounting inventory of houseboats and cruisers was to blame for the decision. The New Ocean City Road plant has been operating with just 75 employees since March; just two years ago, more than 650 people were employed there. Donald Gilbert is the Salisbury plant’s manager.
• It was a big Labor Day Weekend for Clifton L. Morris Jr. of East Locust Street. The U.S. Army Spec. 5 arrived home from Vietnam late last week, was feted at a surprise 21st birthday celebration in his honor and married his girlfriend, Debbie Osborne, 20, of Edward Avenue. A 1968 graduate of James M. Bennett Senior High School, he enlisted in the Army last year. He is a combat engineer in the 11th Armored Cavalry. He said the scariest time during his Vietnam deployment was when President Nixon ordered troops into Cambodia, where Morris ended up serving for a month and escaped injury when a personnel carrier he was riding in struck a landmine.
• In a Labor Day announcement directed at University of Maryland officials, Republican State Senate Candidate William G. Duvall, a Salisbury lawyer, sharply attacked a decision to allow William Kunstler, the attorney for Civil Rights leader H. Rap Brown and the Chicago Seven, to appear before a freshman orientation program on the College Park campus. Declared Duvall: “The university has revealed a consistently dangerous weakness in coming to grips with the problems posed by student radicals.”
• Wicomico County Planner Matthew C. Creamer was speaker at last week’s Women of the Moose meeting, held at the Moose Lodge on Snow Hill Road. The Program Chairwoman, Mrs. Hugh Livingston Sr., said Creamer showed slides of different areas of the city and discussed possible urban renewal plans for each area. Creamer also explained to the group why good planning was needed to ensure proper growth in the city and surrounding urban areas.
• Salisbury Police Chief Leslie J. Payne presented Safety Driving Awards to 30 Salisbury U.S. Postal carriers who have gone 10 years or longer without a driving accident. Special recognition was given to Virgil McCready Jr., with 22 accident-free years; Calvin J. Baker 20 years; W. Fulton Cantwell, 20 years; and Marion F. Stewart, 16 years.