Good old days - Jan. 27, 2011

125 years ago, January 29, 1886

The public school building will be dedicated with appropriate ceremonies next Wednesday. Prof. Mecklem and the entire management of the affair desire a full attendance of parents and taxpayers on the occasion.

Spelling bees and debating societies seem to be the rage these winter evenings in the country school houses.

A few days ago, Mr. Perry Davis at Wawawai, while going to Almota, saw the Indians camped opposite Offield’s dressing a sheep. They are suspected of stealing horses and killing fat steers. There is considerable feeling against them and the people will petition the secretary of the interior to have them removed.

The brass band has been reorganized and the toot of the horn is again heard in the land.

Northern Pacific expects to have its trains running across the Cascade mountains by means of a “switchback” and into Tacoma by the end of the present year.

Mr. Harrington of Farmington, agent for Paddock’s fanning mill, is in Palouse City. He is showing the farmers what his device will do in the way of cleaning grain.

100 years ago, January 27, 1911

A factory will soon be in full swing in Colfax to manufacture the McRae harvester and separator, the McRae weeder and the Carley feed mill, as well as do a general foundry and repair business. Articles of incorporation for the Colfax Harvester Co. were filed the last of last week, Alexander McRae (inventor of the harvester and weeder), P.B. Stravens, J.A. Hampton, John Bloom, R.O. Cornelius and W.O. Carley being the incorporators. The company will issue $175,000 in stock.

The sheriff’s office was in receipt of a box of Havana cigars from Spokane this week.

It came about after a citizen of the Falls City, seeking to escape service of legal documents, hopped aboard an O-W. R. & N. Co. train reaching Colfax at 12:30 midnight, long after most people are asleep.

The sheriff’s office here was notified and asked to serve the papers.

Deputy Cole boarded the train and while it was thundering along located the wanted man fast asleep in a Pullman sleeper, not dreaming of the Turk in classic verse, but evidently of the smooth way he was doing things.

He was served before the train reached Mockonema, the first station.

Deputy Cole jumping off and returning to Colfax on Jack Bentley’s pusher.

That shows the sheriff’s office sometimes has strenuous work to do, even at the midnight hour.

Oh!, those Havana cigars.

Farmers living north of Malden have decided to buy the warehouse at Squaw creek. There has been much dissatisfaction over wheat being docked and the farmers are determined to handle their own grain.

Charley Sturdevant, night miller at the Colfax Flour Mill, met with an accident Saturday night that has confined him to his home all week up to this date. A bottle of acid slipped from his hands and struck the floor. The patent cork flew up, acid spurting into his face, badly burning the cheeks and eyelids and eating into the flesh only as acid can.

75 years ago, January 24, 1936

Commissioners of Garfield and Whitman counties met here Monday to consider the joint purchase and operation of the Almota ferry on the Snake river, but came to no definite conclusion, as the matter was largely contingent on improvement of roads leading to the river and concerning which neither board had promises to offer.

Colfax barbers last week agreed to return to the 50-cent price for haircuts and to keep the price of shaves at 25 cents. They cut the price of a tonic shampoo from 75 to 50 cents, a plain shampoo from 50 to 25 cents, a neck clip from 25 to 15 cents and a tonic from 25 to 15 cents.

The county sheriff’s office Saturday took delivery of a new DeSoto sedan from Imperial Motors, having traded in an old car of another make. A car borrowed from the office of the prosecuting attorney has been returned, reducing the number of cars in use when Sheriff Carson J. Walker took office by one.

50 years ago, January 26, 1961

Luce Hart of Colfax recently received a postcard from a relative, Richard Erickson of Spokane, mailed from San Mateo, Calif., in 1948. Hart thought nothing more about it until the Ericksons visited recently and he asked questions about their “recent trip” to California. A family argument developed over the reputed trip when someone took another look at the postcard and notice the Aug. 5, 1948 date on a one-cent stamp.

Ray Culbertson of Palouse Ammonia believes farmer Gerald Ross of Penawawa set a new record for “winter fertilizing” last week because of unseasonably warm weather. Ross applied fertilizer to spring barley in land along the breaks of the Snake last Thursday and Friday.

County commissioners are planning to spend more than half a million dollars in new construction and improvements on county roads during 1961, County Engineer John McInerny said today.

25 years ago, January 23, 1986

A $2.40 per bushel rate on next year’s wheat loans could mean a 75-cent “kick in the pants” for every bushel and it could tally out to be about a $15 to $20 million hit to the Whitman County economy. Loans went out on 17 to 18 million bushels of the 1985 crop at $3.51 per bushel.

Colfax doctors Dr. Robert Tulin and Dr. Arthur Evans, discontinued the obstetrics part of their medical practices Jan. 1 in response to escalating malpractice insurance premiums. Dr. Larry Smick and Garfield and Dr. Robert Closson in Colfax, who both moved to the area last year, have not included obstetrics in their practices.

An expected increase in the city’s water/sewer rates has yet to appear on resident’s bills because of a conflict on the city council. The dispute on the increased billings hit the council session Tuesday night with Councilman Tom Kneeshaw promising to propose a hike after the utilities committee neglected to do so.

10 years ago, January 25, 2001

After attempting twice to sell the former Rose Bowl building in Rosalia to collect overdue taxes, Whitman County closed a sale for $16,100 in a live bid session Friday morning at the courthouse. George Robertson of Malden was the high bidder for the property.

Over the objection of Les Wigen, the Whitman County commissioners Monday voted to hire Jim Potts to lobby for the county’s interests at Olympia. Potts, who was a county commissioner from January 1993 to December 1996, will be paid $3,600 a year.

A customer returned a fuel hose to Jackpot at Colfax Monday after he discovered he had driven off with the hose still stuck in his tank. The hose was apparently undamaged.