Good old days - Dec. 16, 2010

125 years ago, Dec. 18, 1885

It is considered by the knowing ones as almost certain that the projected line of railroad from Riparia to the Palouse branch will be constructed at an early day, giving all rail connection between Colfax and Walla Walla.

The directors have ordered patent desks and a fine 30-inch bell for the new school house. The bell will be the finest in the city.

F. McDonough was arrested Tuesday, charged with selling liquor to persons adjudged as habitual drunkards. Hearing of the case was postponed until Thursday.

A private “mother goose,” or masquerade, was given in City Hall last Friday evening, the occasion being the sixteenth birthday of Miss Blanche Bellinger.

Anticipating a great demand for brick, Spencer and Hoare will start a brick yard on the North Palouse, a few miles above this city. Work will commence as soon as the weather will permit.

100 years ago, Dec. 16, 1910

The interest in which the people of Colfax feel in their schools was demonstrated by the crowd which attended the formal opening of the new high school building last Friday afternoon and evening. There were over 200 visitors in the afternoon, who went from room to room watching teachers and pupils at their regular work. The big school auditorium proved too small to accommodate the crowd which gathered for the evening program, which was opened with a song by a quartet of high school boys that garnered demands for an encore.

Little Bernice Stuht is nursing a broken arm as the result of a fall in the departmental school gymnasium.

J.W. Poteet has received the largest consignment of nuts ever shipped to Colfax at one time.

75 years ago, Dec. 20, 1935

Some persons are so unappreciative of the city’s effort to make the street decorations more beautiful this year than ever before as to remove colored light globes from the lamp post trees about as fast as they can be replaced. The offense is a misdemeanor and punishable by fine or imprisonment.

Marilyn, two-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Wood, swallowed two closed safety pins Saturday without serious consequences. Her mother learned of the mishap when an older sister, Gloriann, remarked that she had seen Marilyn swallow the pins.

George Anderson, 18, was fined $10 and costs for trapping fur bearing animals and using unlicensed traps. He was also denied the privilege of obtaining a license in the future. He had his traps set in the Eden valley district.

50 years ago, Dec. 15, 1960

Approximately half of the M.S. Cannon juvenile fishpond on the northwest city limits will become a casualty of the Colfax flood control project. Levies, dikes and other flood control works designed to give the river a straighter shot at the present highway bridge will require realignment of the channel to such an extent that the west half of the present pond will have to be eliminated.

Combined efforts of firemen and equipment from Colfax, Pullman, Palouse and Potlatch saved the pea splitting and pelleting plant of the H.C. Knoke Co. of Palouse from destruction by a blaze which started in the headhouse. The headhouse burned and fell to the roof of a flathouse on one side but firemen were able to keep the flames from spreading to lower floors.

Proposed merger of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern railways would have little effect in the Palouse country other than to close a few stations in communities now served by both railroads. Their merger would not call for any track abandonment, but would definitely reduce the number of railway agents and section workers now employed.

25 years ago, Dec. 19, 1985

A doe with triplet fawns has been sighted several times at Kamiak Butte park in the past week, according to park ranger Brian Gilles. Twins are unusual, but triplet fawns are extremely unusual, according to Gilles, who sighted the foursome four times during the week.

Virginia Sanders has ended her newscasting career after more than six years at KCLX in Colfax. Her 30-minute noon news broadcasts recapped the morning’s news at the courthouse, city hall and other points.

A joint effort between county officials and Washington State University computer center officials has gained the county $20,000 sales tax income from WSU’s purchase of a $4 million computer system.

10 years ago, Dec. 14, 2000

Spokane Sheriff’s deputies and Spokane police have been called in to investigate the death of a 26-year-old Clarkston man who was shot and killed by Whitman County deputies last week near the intersection of highway 195 and the Johnson Road. Sheriff Steve Tomson said the man was shot after he climbed onto the back of his Chevrolet pickup and pointed a pistol at deputies. The shooting ended a 75-minute confrontation which the sheriff described as “suicide by police.”

Nobody wanted the Rosalia Rose Bowl bowling alley for $10,250 at the Treasurer’s foreclosure sale last Friday, resulting in ownership by Whitman County.

Pullman firefighters were called to the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house Sunday morning to extinguish a fire in a couch in the sleeping room. A candle left burning in the room was the cause of the fire.