Good old days - Oct. 25, 2012

125 years ago

October 28, 1887

Last Saturday, Harvey Bangs, who has been working with the Ellis Bros.’ threshing outfit, was paid $85 and at once celebrated by getting blind drunk in this city.

He was assisted in this operation by Gordon Cooper, a man well known about town.

Cooper stayed with Bangs until the latter was not only too full for utterance, but was too full for anything else.

About 8 o’clock in the evening, Cooper was seen assisting him toward the upper end of town, and soon after Ellis bros., who had seen them going that way started out to find Bangs, which they did above Cooper’s residence in the upper end of town.

He was lying by the roadside, dead drunk and had not a dollar in any pocket.

Some small boys playing near informed the brothers they had seen Cooper feeling in Bangs’ pockets.

Cooper was found near by and at once seized by the Ellis boys.

He showed fight and received a black eye before he could be persuaded to come downtown where he was turned over to Deputy Sheriff Newcomer who locked him up.

Mrs. Cooper was informed her husband was in trouble and had sent them for the money he had taken from Bangs; that by using the money he could get out of jail.

Mrs. Cooper said her husband had informed her he won the money at gambling and told her to hide it, which she did.

She then went outside and dug up the money.

Amount recovered was $73.

It will be news to many to learn Colfax has a candy factory. Harris and McDonald recently engaged the services of a first-class candy maker from Boston, and now have a nice little factory in operation over their bakery.

Miss Grace Scriber has been favoring private audiences with recitations the past week and is desirous of forming a class in elocution. Persons interested may find her at the residence of Alf. Coolidge.

A.H. Kaley sold nine new top buggies Saturday at public and private sale in this city. They brought an average of about $70 each.

100 years ago

October 25, 1912

George Wesley Brown and his wife, Winnie Brown, have been acquitted of the charge of murdering her father, Al Neeves, on Setember 15. However, they will be confined in the ward for the criminally insane at Walla Walla for some time at least. It took the jury five hours to reach a conclusion. Dr. Edwin L. Kimball, an expert in insanity, appeared for the defense and testified he believed the couple had become temporarily insane by their troubles and that they continued in that state until the crime was committed. Dr. W.J. Howells appeared for the state and said the defendants were sane at the time they committed the crime and he did not believe they were safe persons to be at large.

The slaughter house in Palouse belonging to Mr. Behrens of the C.O.D. Market was destroyed by fire last week. The loss was about $1000 with $200 insurance. The building will be rebuilt at once.

James M. Head has purchased a 50-lamp acetylene lighting plant for $350 and is installing it on his ranch three and one-half miles southeast of Tekoa. He will light his house, barn and poultry house.

The walls of the new Farmington school building are up and the metal cornice is on. It is hoped the building will be completed by the middle of December.

Two cases of typhoid fever are reported at St. John. Both are children and are getting along satisfactorily.

75 years ago

October 15, 1937

Boys smoking under the Union Pacific depot is believed to have been the origin of the fire last Friday evening about 9 o’clock, in which a beam under the depot was burned to approximately a two-inch depth. Rumors that the blaze was an incendiary attempt to burn the building were discounted by officers who learned that youngsters had been holding smoking “club” meetings there.

Remodeling work and installation of equipment for a candy and light pastry kitchen at the Shamrock cafe has been completed, and first batches of these confections should be ready for sale this week.

George Janke, 53, was sentenced to 90 days in the county jail after pleading guilty to a charge of illegal sale of liquor at Winona. Janke was arrested by state liquor inspectors. He formerly operated a beer parlor at Winona, officers said, but was forced out of business when rural precincts voted dry. He then went into the bootlegging business, officers reported.

Arlie Parker and Joe Williams, arrested on charges of drunkenness and fighting at a carnival in Uniontown Saturday night, were brought to the county jail until Monday morning when they were ordered out of town by Prosecutor John D. Evans.

50 years ago

October 25, 1962

Televising of the “Colfax Story” has been scheduled for Sunday at 4 p.m. over Spokane station KREM-TV channel 4. The program is based in part on the study of the community made by Town and Country in 1956 and 1957 under direction of the University of Washington’s community development bureau.

Colfax bank deposits have reached an all-time record figure of nearly $14 million - reflecting what bankers term a remarkable recovery from the short crop harvested by area farmers in 1961.

Garnett White and Sons, St. John and Spangle, took grand champion male and female honors at the Portland International livestock show, Red Angus division.

25 years ago

October 22, 1987

Seven 60-ton beams were gently lowered onto bridge abutments at Elberton to stake out a new record for Whitman County. The beams on the new Elberton bridge measure 155 feet and are the longest pre-stressed single span in the state.

County health department is checking into a complaint from several Lamont residents that chicken manure being spread as fertilizer on rangeland nearby is an environmental nuisance.

Sharon Scaggs won first place in the apple pie baking contest at Dusty Daze Saturday.

10 years ago

October 24, 2002

The richest man in the world stopped off at the Top Notch Cafe in Colfax Tuesday for lunch.

As he exited the building, somebody asked Brenda Merry, the waitress, if she had just served Bill Gates.

“I don’t know,” she responded, turning to a Gazette reporter slumped over the counter with his face buried in a newspaper.

“Was that Bill Gates?” she asked.

The reporter said he had “no idea.” Staffers at Whitman County Library later confirmed that it was, indeed, Microsoft’s Bill Gates who had just dined on what the Top Notch bills as the “Best Burgers in the USA.” Gates was in town to observe training with computers the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated to the library.

Merry reported another man with Gates paid the meal tab and left a tip she rated “very good.”

Fire struck the Palouse Farm and Home store in Oakesdale less than a week before its Oct. 28 grand opening. Tuesday, 1:30 p.m., winds swept a fire from a neighbor’s yard waste burn pile. Flames ten feet leapt through 50 to 75 yards of overgrown pasture, burned a greenhouse and ignited the north end of the tin-roofed wooden structure at 510 N. Front Street.

A train derailment Thursday afternoon on the tracks of Palouse River & Coulee City blocked off Highway 195 and other Colfax streets to cut Colfax traffic flow in half. The Cooper crossing was cleared after about four hours and had to be blocked again when crews eased the train out the next day. Lone north-south link for Colfax left in operation was the narrow Cromwell-Deanway route on the west hill, which was blocked off after traffic was jammed.