Good Old Days - 4/28/11

125 years ago - April 30, 1886

The driving of the Chinese from towns on Puget Sound, has left salmon fisheries there in a bad condition. It has deprived them of a class of labor that was both cheap and skillful and which cannot be replaced. The proprietor of the cannery at Tacoma threatens to move his establishment to the Columbia River if the Chinese are not permitted to return. White labor costs more and if it is employed the price at which salmon are sold to consumers must be increased. The season for catching usually begins the first of April. A month is already gone and yet the fishermen are idle, their boats are tied up, the canneries locked and no prospect of change. That is one result of the injustice done.

Work on the Spokane & Palouse railroad is being prosecuted vigorously, the whole length of the 43 miles which the company intends building this season being literally covered with men and teams. In McCoy hollow, eighteen miles north of Colfax, where the most southerly camp is located, 50 men and a large number of teams are making the dirt fly. At this camp is said to be the heaviest cut on the line.

100 years ago - April 28, 1911

The plowing and seeding of roadsides to wheat to keep the weeds down appears to be a wise and public spirited move. The trouble is of little consequence and the benefits are real. Too often the road is a breeding place for all the noxious weeds in the country.

LaCrosse claims it is the only town in the Palouse country that not only produces enough eggs for home consumption, but has some to export at all seasons, refuting the oft-repeated statement that poultry raising cannot be successfully carried on in the Palouse country.

From all sections west of LaCrosse come reports that the damage done to fruit trees is not near so great as at first reported. J.S. Martin who has a large orchard a few miles west of here, says that he will have a good crop of all kinds of fruit, excepting cherries.

George McCutcheon, a sheepman of Hay, reports that from 500 head of ewes he raised this season 100 percent of the lambs dropped, which is considered a rare case.

Complaint is to be made to the railroad commission against the rules governing the OWR&N station at Farmington. No freight will be delivered from the station after 5 p.m. This works a hardship on people coming from a distance to get freight. Settlers on the Coeur d’Alene reservation have been required to remain in Farmington overnight because the agent has refused to give out freight a few minutes after 5 p.m., although he lives in the depot.

75 years ago - April 24, 1936

An all-time heat record for April was established at 3 p.m. Friday when the government thermometer registered 91 degrees. Records have been kept officially for 43 years.

An unsuccessful attempt was made Tuesday night by Game Protector Gene Fennimore and four assistants to capture a small deer that has been grazing at the Pullman cemetery and is now destroying shrubs and flowers. A flashlight was used in the hope of blinding the deer to make it easier to put a rope around its neck. Fennimore succeeded in getting his arms around the doe’s neck, but she escaped after ripping his trousers with all four hooves.

Wood truckers, who have been in the habit of bringing their lunches and sleeping in their trucks at night, are to be ordered off Spring and Wall streets. Chief Benton hereafter will tell them to park on Mill.

Elwin Iverson, 10, was third high in eastern Washington in a recent subscription contest by Curtis Publishing company and received an electric percolator as a prize.

50 years ago - April 27, 1961

Little optimism for an end to the gas war was voiced by Colfax gas dealers as the price war continued its second week in the city. More business and less profit has been the result for the majority, whose price continues at 25.9 cents a gallon.

Proposed merger of the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, S.P. & S. and Burlington railroads would provide better, faster service to Whitman County shippers, H.M. Shapleigh of the Great Northern told Colfax’s Chamber of Commerce last Wednesday. The proposed merger would not result in any abandonment of trackage or decline in service, he said.

Finances for construction of access roads to port sites on the Snake river is the No. 1 problem facing Whitman County’s port district, grain dealers and others agreed at a closed meeting with port commissioners last Thursday night in Colfax. Riparia and Almota were identified as excellent sites for grain shipment facilities and urged development of good roads to the sites as soon as possible.

Salary increases ranging from $260 to $500 per year have been authorized by the school board for Colfax teachers for the school year beginning next September.

25 years ago - April 24, 1986

Two employees at state grain inspection office in Colfax were notified last week their employment would be terminated May 9 in a general statewide reduction in force (RIF). The cutback will leave just two employees at the Colfax office.

“We’re trying to hold onto the Colfax office as long as we can. Our alternatives are to cut staff, increase fees for grain inspection or figure out an added work load to keep the offices going. There isn’t any added work load right now and the industry (pea and lentil and grain people) have said ‘no’ to increasing fees,” Said Allen Stine, assistant director of commodities in the State Department of Agriculture.

St. John is gearing up for it’s seventh annual Community Fair and Stock Show this weekend with events planned Saturday and Sunday, according to Fran Martin and Larry Dickerson, committee members.

10 years ago - April 26, 2001

An emphasis has been placed on rural tourism by Gov. Gary Locke to help promote “one Washington” in an effort to balance the economy of rural communities with their west side counterparts. Three interactive conferences are being planned within the state to provide tourism consumer research data, market trends and group tour information specific to each region’s communities.

Walking down the street Whitman County Chaplain Ron McMurrray looks like any other sheriff’s deputy in uniform- until you take a closer look. His badge says Chaplain and he wears a silver cross above his name plate, but most obvious is the absence of a gun belt.

“I have seen more tragedies and situations in the three years I have been Chaplain in Whitman County than I ever saw in the 21 years as a pastor in Connecticut,” he said.

He and his wife of 32 years, Judy, moved to the Palouse approximately four years ago to be closer to their family and to take the pastor position at Grace Bible Church in Pullman.

The Chaplaincy program, a grace ministry, was initiated by Whitman County Sheriff Steve Tomson as part of community oriented policing McMurray told with the highest praise. But since the Washington State Constitution doesn’t allow public funding for the chaplaincy, it is dependent on donations.