A Look Back: Sept. 4

50 Years Ago

■Extreme weather patterns prevailed in the area this week as the first tornado to hit Massachusetts in 20 years touched down in West Stockbridge, killing four persons, injuring 31 others and doing untold thousands of dollars’ worth of damage.

■Experts from the University of Massachusetts Shade Tree Laboratory warned this week that Dutch Elm disease, costly killer of elm trees, may become more widespread around Hampshire County unless towns come up with the money to remove infected trees.

25 Years Ago

■The old beer hall has been turned into an artisans’ pavilion at the Three-County Fair. That simple act — one of several changes on the fairgrounds this year — shows that the directors and new general manager Gerry Katz are serious about changing the fair’s image.

■Filmmaker Lawrence R. Hott of Haydenville is up for another award, an Emmy, for his documentary “Divided Highways.” The 90-minute Florentine Films/Hott Productions film, which debuted on PBS last fall, is about the building of the country’s interstate highway system.

10 Years Ago

■Yankee Candle Co. is being sold to a Fortune 500 company that also makes Mr. Coffee, Ball canning jars, Tubbs snowshoes and Coleman camping products. Current owners of the 43-year-old Franklin County candle-making giant announced Monday that they had entered into a “definitive purchase agreement” with Jarden Corp. of Rye, N.Y., for $1.75 billion in cash.

■After a decade in pieces, the historic Noah Parsons House that once stood on Old South Street in Northampton is whole again and on the market. Owner and restorer John Otis of Williamsburg said the old home is also new and improved at 18 Village Hill Road in Williamsburg.

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