Good old days - Dec. 24, 2009

125 years ago

Jan. 2, 1884

Walla Walla and Spokane Falls are struggling for metropolitan supremacy of eastern Washington, so say their newspapers. Go in lemons and get squeezed, but keep your weather eye on Colfax.

One or two of our contemporaries have already reached us printed on a half sheet. Others will follow suit if the blockade is not broken soon. The Gazette has just enough paper for one more issue, but we hope a supply en route from Minneapolis will reach us in time to prevent embarrassment. The Gazette has never yet appeared on the half shell.

100 years ago

Dec. 24, 1909

Some Holiday Don’ts

Don’t give presents that are a pleasure for ten minutes and a burden and worry for ten years.

Don’t, young women, buy neckties for your men folk; don’t encourage them in being bigger guys than necessary.

Don’t give a drum to the children of your enemy who works nights. A watchman’s rattle is just as good and it is cheaper.

Don’t give your wife something she doesn’t care for just because you want it yourself. This ‘don’t’ works the other way just as well.

Don’t forget that a basket of fruit or a box of flowers is just as nice a present in many cases as something that will last a good deal longer.

Don’t try to find the price marks on the gifts you receive. If the gifts are worth having they mean something above dollars and cents.

Don’t forget the Bob Cratchit and the Tiny Tims, that is, unless you are unregenerate Old Scrooge, in which case forgetfulness can be explained.

Don’t put off everything to the last, because you had better, for the joy of your friends, give nothing than wear yourself out and be as cross as two sticks when the blessed day comes.

Don’t waste any of your pity on the long-haired youths who lie at the bottom of the heap in football scrimmages. You will need all your pity for yourself in the rush at the holiday counter.

Don’t check off each gift you receive against each present that you gave and calculate whether you made or lost. Christmas is not the time to be any smaller or meaner than you can help.

75 years ago

Dec. 28, 1934

Thirty seven years ago yesterday Thursday, Arnold Gerber lost $400 in greenbacks, a gold watch and chain in a stage robbery between Dencer, and Grangeville, Idaho. A salesman from Seattle lost $60 and another from Portland lost $40. The stage driver was shot at six times before he stopped the horses.

The two bandits, half and quarterbreed freight haulers, were given 99 years in the Idaho penitentiary, Chester Arnold of this city being one of the spectators at the trial.

Charles A. Hubbard, 60, died Monday afternoon at St. Ignatius hospital following a lingering illness.

He was born at Dallas, Ore. to the later Mr. and Mrs. Goalman Hubbard, who settled in Polk County, Ore. in 1846. The family came to Whitman County in 1889, the father taking a homestead on Union flat, 15 miles west of Colfax.

50 years ago

Dec. 24, 1959

Residents of the Hooper school district held the equivalent of an old-fashioned “town meeting” on the highly-controversial subject of school consolidation in Colfax Monday night.

The occasion; a hearing before the county school reorganization committee on a petition for consolidation of the Hooper and La Crosse school districts.

Patrons of both districts were invited to air their views before the committee which must decide whether or not to call for an election.

25 years ago

Dec. 27, 1984

County Coroner Pete Martin of St. John formally assumed the duties of Sheriff Dec. 12 in accordance with a state law regarding replacement of an incapacitated Sheriff. He will head the department while Sheriff Cleve Hunter is on medical leave.

“Under these circumstances, the coroner’s office absorbs the sheriff’s department. To have Dalton Lewey officially work under me, he needed to be attached to the coroner’s office,” Martin said.

Martin, who is employed as a Medex at the St. John Clinic, plans to be in the sheriff’s office at least once a week, usually on Thursdays and on will call in daily. He will participate in policy decisions, direct the department on executive decisions and participate in such matters as the upcoming budget hearings.

While he has the authority to take part in law enforcement activities he said he will not do so.

The Longhorn café in Rosalia was destroyed by fire early Dec. 19 in spite of efforts by the Rosalia and Oakesdale fire departments.

Cause of the fire had not been determined by Wednesday morning, but firemen believe it started in the ceiling area, probably by faulty wiring, according to Dick Melhus, Rosalia fireman.

The fire apparently started shortly after the café was closed in the restaurant portion and spread to a room used as the lounge. Sheriff’s Deputy Brendan Kerin noticed smoke as he drove by the café and reported the fire to the Rosalia fire department at 12:10 a.m.

10 years ago

Dec. 23, 1999

Purchase of the Harrison Electric building on Main Street in Colfax was approved formerly by the county commissioners Monday. The county will buy the building, which is located in the N. 300 block of Main Street next to the county’s Public Service Building.