Good Old Days Jan. 12

125 years ago

The Commoner

Jan. 8, 1892

The city was visited by a costly blaze last Monday, when the new steam laundry in the Perkins addition, North Colfax, was leveled to the ground in an hour.

The alarm was turned in at about 6 o'clock, and the firemen responded with all the speed attainable.

The distance of the laundry from the center of the city, rendered the run to the scene an exceedingly exhausting one, and when the department arrived the building was already enveloped in flames, and it was impossible to save any portion of it.

The steam engine was stuck in the mud on the way to the fire and lost considerable time, while the hook and ladder boys made the best of the situation by using their energies to protect the property in the immediate vicinity.

An immerse crowd of people gathered to witness the fire, which threatened to spread to the two-story dwelling house, owned and occupied by John Housekeeper, and situated east of the laundry, the direction in which the wind was blowing early in the evening.

Had not the breeze shifted when the fire was at its highest, the house would certainly have been destroyed.

Brave and valuable service was performed by firemen and residents of North Colfax, in keeping the roof of the dwelling house wet down, at considerable risk to themselves, by the aid of buckets of water, which were rapidly handed up the ladders.

The steam laundry was a total loss. The building and plant were valued at $4,500; the machinery being the chief value of cost. The proprietors of the laundry were Messrs. Housekeeper, Laughbaum and Platt, and their total insurance on the property was $2,800.

***

H. P. Barr was down from Oakesdale yesterday purchasing supplies for a harness and saddle store which he will open in Oakesdale next week. Mr. Barr is probably the oldest workman at the bench in the Palouse country, having made his first set of harness here fourteen years ago. He is an experienced harness maker and thoroughly understands the business. He will no doubt enjoy a good trade.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

Jan. 12, 1917

William Dailey, chief of police, threw open the doors of the city jail Monday evening and released two prisoners who were serving out a fine in the city bastile. Mr. Dailey appeared before the council in the evening and stated that the two men had five dollars between them and that he took this money and urged the guests to depart. The officer stated that he had shoveled more than two tons of coal into the furnace during the day in an effort to keep the prisoners warm, and with the coming of night, the forced guests had put up a great cry for more heat.

“Coal is worth about eight dollars a ton,” said the officer, “and the board of prisoners was costing the city nearly a dollar and a half a day, besides look at the amount of work that I was forced to do in shoveling coal to keep the men warm. As it was impossible to keep the jail warm, owing to the fact that the radiator had been damaged by an escaping prisoner last summer, why I turned the prisoners out and am here to turn over the five dollars which they gave me,” said the Chief of the city. Mayor Weinberg instructed the officer to turn the money over to the city treasurer and secure a receipt for the amount.

Mr. Dailey told the members of the council that the jail was unsafe in its present condition. A committee of councilmen visited the jail after the session of the council was over, and they decided it was dangerous and conceded that the chief of police had used good judgment in dismissing his guests.

75 years ago

Colfax Gazette Commoner

Jan. 9, 1942

As their elders buckled down to the stern task of defending America at war, Colfax school children were this week beginning a new course of study which might be called “Survival of the Prepared.”

The course, compiled from the lessons taught by total war in Britain, has been drawn up by Colfax schools to meet any emergency. Complete inter-school organization will be perfected in the near future, Ralph N. Peterson, acting superintendent, revealed, and the facility of each school will be a self-sufficient unit to cope with such emergencies as may develop.

***

The first defense rally in Colfax, held Monday night at the high school under the auspices of the Parent-Teacher association and conducted by the Colfax Toastmasters club, struck a sober note as officials of the city and county civilian defenses sought to impress their listeners with the gravity of the situation for which every community throughout the nation is preparing.

E. C. Huntley, chairman of the county defense council, expressed the opinion of his fellow speakers when he said that in preparing for an emergency “we must let out imaginations run riot for a while, then multiply our effort by six times,” for, he said, Colfax and Whitman County does not yet fully realize the extent nor effect of the struggle in which the nation is engaged.

50 years ago

Colfax Gazette

Jan. 12, 1967

More than two and one-half million dollars will be spent on state highways in Whitman County during the 1967-69 biennium if the legislature adopts and provides the money for the two-year construction program submitted this week by the state highway commission.

Approximately $1 million each would be spent on two projects: $1,022,265 between Hooper and Dusty on state highway 26, and $1,022,458 between Colton and the top of the Lewiston grade on route 195. The balance would be spent on scattered projects around the county.

The request for route 26 calls for design and construction of 20.7 miles of new highway, with the largest single item more than half a million for a new road from a point near the Urgel Bell ranch home eastward to connect with the new construction of a few years ago several miles west of Dusty.

A contract has already been let for construction of a new highway from the Bell place along Willow creek to Pampa, bypassing the town of LaCrosse. The balance of half a million dollars sought for route 26 in Whitman County would be spent between Pampa and Hooper, with a quarter million earmarked for “grading and paving” between Pampa and the Palouse river or Whitman-Adams county line.

The million-dollar project on highway 195 calls for $619,275 to grade and pave 5.17 miles from Uniontown to the junction with US 95 near the top of the Lewiston grade and $403,183 for grading and paving 2.92 miles from Colton to Uniontown.

Also requested for expenditure on US 195 is $179,774 for design and acquisition of right-of-way for 3.72 miles from the end of the recently-finished Thornton-Rosalia highway north toward Spokane and around Rosalia. The budget calls for $155,826 for design and $23,948 for right-of-way.

25 years ago

Colfax Gazette

Jan. 9, 1992

A decision reportedly is near on opening the Milwaukee Road Corridor for non-motorized use year around, according to Jim Munroe. Munroe works in the southeast region office of the state Department of Natural Resources in Ellensburg.

The regional office staff have compiled the written and oral comments and made a recommendation to regional manager Bill Boyam, Munroe explained.

Boyam will review their report Monday to see if he agrees with their recommendation, he said.

Then Boyam will forward it to Art Sterns, supervisor for the Department of Natural Resources, Munroe explained.

He is the appointed department head, second in command to the elected land commissioner, Brian Boyle.

Sterns is the only one who can sign the final document either opening the trail to year around use east of the river or keeping it closed, Munroe said.

The trail now closes from June 16 until Sept. 30 east of the Columbia River.

Public hearings were held this fall on opening the corridor, also known as the John Wayne Trail.

The John Wayne Trail on this side of the Columbia River is managed by the state Department of Natural Resources.

On the other side of the river, the trail is managed by the state parks department as Iron Horse State Park.

The John Wayne Trail cuts across the northern third of Whitman County.

By November 1990, the state Department of Natural Resources had received over 200 letters requesting the trail be opened year around, so they decided to schedule the hearings.

***

Members of the Colfax city council Monday night took initial steps to again create a board of adjustment to handle zoning appeals. The action would reverse a recent move to merge the city's planning commission and zoning boards.

City Attorney Gary Libey said the present city system of two boards in one creates a situation where panel members serve as “judge and jury” at the same time.

Councilman Tom Kammerzell noted the planning commission was placed under a load last summer and fall as part of the mobile home dispute. Members had to decide the mobile home dispute on the North Flat as members of the adjustment panel while also rewriting the city's zoning laws for mobile homes as members of the planning commission.

The city merged the two boards during the Stueckle administration because of the difficulty of getting people to serve and getting a quorum when decisions had to be made.

Libey explained a planning commission sets zone regulations and assigns zones for annexations to the city. An adjustment board acts as an appeals board for residents who are dissatisfied with the way zoning regulations are applied.

Mayor Norma Becker pointed out a return to the two-board system will allow residents to a separate avenue of appeal. She noted members of the planning commission were placed under a burden during the mobile home saga last year.

Becker described the city's attempts to merge the two boards as an experiment which didn't work.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

Jan. 11, 2007

Colfax crews Monday and Tuesday continued to remove tons of mud and debris from the Clay Street area after it was inundated last Tuesday night by water and mud that washed off fields above the east hill.

Cleanup on Clay Street started last Wednesday after heavy rains hit the area. Thursday the cleanup sessions stopped when crews had to break for a heavy winter storm which put a bind on motorists around the county.

The rainstorm last Wednesday also brought flooding to other parts of the county with heavy rainfall recorded in the northern sections.

Rainfall for the first three days of the year totaled 1.5 inches at the NRCS weather gauge in Colfax.

Oakesdale was hit by flooding early Wednesday morning with yards and homes flooded on the east side of town.

At least eight homes were flooded on the east side in the area between Bartlett and Steptoe Streets. North-south streets in that area, Idaho and Washington, sustained flooding.

***

Whitman County Planner Mark Bordsen Tuesday affirmed his Dec. 14 Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance under the State Environmental Policy Act on Hawkins Companies' proposed development of a strip mall on the Idaho state line.

Bordsen's decision stated none of the comments submitted last week by the City of Moscow and former Latah County Commissioner Mark Solomon showed a significant, negative impact would result from the proposed 110-acre project.

Whitman County's Planning Department last week received comment on the M-DNS from Moscow Mayor Nancy Chaney and Solomon.

Moscow's comments listed concerns over water rights, groundwater protection, traffic congestion, availability of emergency services and air quality.

Bordsen said that the comments either do not fall under the SEPA process or were adequately addressed in the M-DNS.

Bordsen noted Moscow's comments that the development did not fall in line with the Planning Enabling Act were out of line with the act's intentions.

The Revised Code of Washington (RCW) states the act provides for the creation not regulation of planning departments and commissioners in urban growth areas.

As to Moscow's comment that the development is not in line with the city's “Smart Growth” principles, Bordsen said the city offers no rationale for applying its principles extraterritorially.”

Solomon recommended the amount of water necessary for the development be specified, while adding none of the water be used for landscape irrigation.

The matter is to be decided by the Whitman County Water Conservancy Board and the state Department of Ecology, said Bordsen.