Good Old Days: Aug. 31, 2017

125 years ago

The Commoner

Aug. 26, 1892

When it was asserted by observing farmers and others familiar with wheat growing in the Palouse grain belt, and by the newspapers, just prior to the opening of harvest, that the crops of the country were not in nearly so serious a condition as had been bruited about, the more pessimistic declared that such talk was for buncombe only; that the crops in no locality were any more than half so good as they should be.

Nevertheless, the binder, the header and the thresher tell a story which backs up the assertion of those who pinned their faith in the wheat fields and the ability of the broad acres to surpass the gloomy estimates put upon them. Even in those districts where the injury was greatest the result of the harvest has been encouraging to a great degree; so much better have been the crops than was generally expected. Proofs of good yields are coming in from many directions.

Isaac Haynes, the well-known farmer of Palouse, was in Colfax today on business. Mr. Haynes is familiarly referred to by his friends as the “old war-horse of democracy.” Speaking of crops in his locality, the gentleman said to a Commoner representative:

“Threshing has begun in my neighborhood. The results so far have been quite satisfactory. The yield is considerably more than the appearance of the grain in the field would lead one to believe. This fact is no doubt due to the manner in which the grain has headed and filled. The heads are extraordinarily large and as plump as they can grow generally.

“The yield in the first field of spring grain threshed near me, on Peter Boner's place, was 38 bushels to the acre. It had been thought that this field would make no more than 20 bushels per acre. That is the estimate made upon it generally. All fields will yield more than was expected of them a short time ago.”

W.J. Hamilton, the Colfax druggist, who has a field of 250 acres of tall wheat on Union flat, a portion upon sod and part summer fallow, is highly pleased. A large part of it has been threshed and the yield is a little over 48 bushels per acre. For the past month he has estimated a harvest of 40 bushels to the acre from it.

***

At a late hour this afternoon Will Ellis was driving up Main street with a load of pigs and calves for a city market slaughter house. Near the Main street schoolhouse the team frightened at a pile of lime barrels left in the street by a builder's crew and ran away. Being beyond control, Mr. Ellis jumped from the wagon at the approach of Cooper lake bridge and sustained a fracture of the ankle bone, which was reduced by Drs. Mitchell and Ault.

The team was captured on Spring flat by Mr. Carley and returned without injury to the calves or pigs, which were in a position that prevented their jumping.

100 years ago

The Colfax

Commoner

Sept. 7, 1917

Bids were opened Monday evening by the city clerk for improving Thorn street and only one firm of contractors bid on this work.

The bid of Ristvedt and Bragg was the only one submitted and these men agreed to do the entire work for $6688.20.

Attorney Horton told the members of the council that he had gone over the city engineer's figure and he was under the impression that the bid was too high.

Councilman Ratliff said that he favored the rejection of this bid and insisted that the city re-advertise for bids for doing this work.

After the bids had been discussed to considerable length, Councilman Ratliff made the motion to reject the bid and to instruct the city clerk, T. J. Welty, to re-advertise for bids.

A number of the councilmen at first seemed in favor of letting the contract and to proceed with the work but this idea was dropped by Councilman Ratliff who led a winning fight to reject the bid and it was his motion that finally led to the rejection of the bid and new bids are to be called for and opened at the next meeting of the council.

***

A number of ladies from different parts of the county met at city hall Tuesday morning and formed a county tuberculosis league. It is the intention of the members of the league to have a representative in every town in the county.

In the afternoon a committee from the new formed league visited the office of the county commissioners and requested them to make a suitable appropriation to be used in the employment of a visiting nurse. It was stated by Miss Buchanan of Seattle who was instrumental in organizing the league that the expense of a visiting nurse would amount to about fifteen hundred dollars a year.

Mrs. Solon Shedd of Pullman, who has been active in the work of the Women's Federated clubs of this state, was present with the committee and made an excellent and convincing talk to the board in regard to the merits of employing a visiting nurse. She was followed by Mrs. R. C. McCroskey of Garfield who substantiated all that Mrs. Shedd had said. Dr. McGregor of Garfield also spoke along the same line and Mrs. Mosier of Tekoa insisted that the needs of a visiting nurse in this vicinity was necessary.

The members of the board took up the question after the visitors had left and they decided that nothing less than $1800 would cover the cost of employing a nurse and this amount will be included in the annual budget.

75 years ago

Colfax Gazette Commoner

Aug. 28, 1942

Prospects for normal administration of school affairs are not too encouraging in the light of problems created by war conditions, Kiwanians were told at their Tuesday noon luncheon by Acting Superintendent R. N. Peterson, who has been unable to take his usual vacation this summer because of day-to-day uncertainties.

Speaking of resignations already received from teachers and the likelihood of others being called into military service by December, Mr. Peterson stated that the district board, however, would be able to shift the teaching loads so that the work could be carried on even though under crippling conditions.

Another problem common to Colfax with all other schools is that of transportation of athletic teams. School buses cannot be used for carrying students bent on outside activities because of the tire situation under a ruling made by the war production board as early as May, and reaffirmed 10 days ago following a universal protest by school authorities.

The answers received to more than 50 letters he had written to school men relative to the bus problem indicated that all were of the opinion that now, more than ever before, an athletic program was of serious importance. To keep boys interested in school, when high wages are tempting them away, the sports program should be enlarged, rather than curtailed, Peterson believed.

One thousand miles was Peterson's estimate of the tire usage that would be made during the year to transport athletic teams, in doubting if the problem could be solved by owners of private cars. In a final effort to get the WPB's ruling reversed in Washington, D. C., Peterson said that the ruinous effect on the business of sporting goods firms would be emphasized.

Also awaiting solution is the problem of school hours, rural people, from whose homes approximately 400 pupils will be transported to Colfax, having registered complaint that on the war savings time schedule their children will be forced to leave and return home in hours of darkness.

The suggestion that school open at 10 a.m. and close at 5 p.m., with an hour off at noon, has met with the criticism of teachers that a four-period afternoon would be too tiring on students, Peterson said.

It is important, he maintained, for the school district officials to hold the goodwill of country patrons, but even the prospects of a compromise solution is not as yet in evidence, unless it be in going back to the old standard time in a community which has no vital war industries.

***

Shipment of 1335 more hospital articles made by members of the Whitman County chapter of the Red Cross has been announced by the county production chairman, Mrs. Harl Organ, Colfax. Most of the articles were made of donated material, but some garments knitted from yarn supplied by the Red Cross were included. Whitman County Red Cross workers have dispatches a record total of 4698 articles for use by the armed forces of the United States since April 1.

50 years ago

Colfax Gazette

Aug. 31, 1967

Taxable valuations of two business buildings on the west side of Main street between the Old National Bank and the 195 Cafe were reduced by the county board of equalization at the request of owners, who appeared at the meeting.

A. J. Scholz, who owns the building formerly occupied by Hamilton Drug Store, asked that the value of his building be lowered from $16,720 to $8,720, which request was granted, and Roy Endsley, who owns the building occupied by the Del Mar Tavern, asked that the value of this building be equalized to a value comparable to the Scholz property, was given a reduction to $8,120.

Arthur Stueckle, who owns a recently remodeled but unoccupied building adjacent to the state liquor agency, also requested a reduction in valuation.

Board members decided that Stueckle's building was comparable in value to that of the Scholz building and decided to leave it at the same value since Scholz had been paying taxes on almost twice the valuation of the Stueckle property. The board indicated that it would consider reduction of value on the Stueckle building if it remained vacant.

Valuation on an elevator and flathouses located on Union Pacific leased property at Diamond and purchased recently by Glenn Miller was lowered in value from $73,260 to $24,750, which was the amount paid for the property by Miller recently.

Roy Timm, Garfield, objected to the valuation on his home in Garfield and the assessor reported after checking that the wrong square footage had been used to figure the value of the home. A valuation of $15,200 as requested by the assessor and agreed upon by Timm was approved by the board.

***

Construction of Whitman Community Hospital is “on schedule” with prospects good for getting a good part of the three-building complex under cover before the onset of winter, Wesley Witcher, project superintendent for ADSCO, said this week.

Pouring of concrete footings for the administration-surgery building will be completed this week and framing of ground floor walls for the nurses' living quarters started this week. Pourings of footings for the nursing wing–largest unit of the hospital–was completed recently and forms for the basement walls are now being placed and some concrete has been poured.

Witcher said 15 men are now employed on the job, including one electrician, and that employment will probably increase as construction expands.

25 years ago

Colfax Gazette

Aug. 27, 1992

Lola Humphrey of Steptoe Monday night donated $250 to the Palouse Empire Fair for the construction of a first aid station on the grounds. The fair plans to install another Old West type building which will adjoin the Steiger Hotel. The building will be designed to resemble an old-time doctor's office with space in back for actual first aid treatment.

“I had a pretty good crop,” Humphrey said as she explained a decision to increase the donation to $250 after an earlier pledge of $100.

For several years, Humphrey has volunteered to head sales of ice cream cones at the Steiger Hotel. Proceeds from the sale of ice cream cones were turned over to the fair. The ice cream this year will be sold by the Rosalia Lions Club.

Whitman County EMTs will again staff a first aid tent at the eventual location of the first aid station. A sketch of the proposed Old West building will be displayed for others who wish to donate.

***

After 26 years of relative silence, classrooms of St. John's Academy Tuesday will be full of youngsters who will face a full year of reading, writing and arithmetic. The revival of the academy is the result of need for Colfax school officials to find a place for pupils while contractors rip up Jennings Elementary in the $3.5 million remodeling project.

One different in the halls at St. John's Tuesday will be change of language. Most of the youngsters Tuesday who will be cranking up the sound level in English will be unaware that the unofficial language of St. John's in its last years of operation as a school was Spanish.

The academy, which dates to 1914, in its early years was the boarding home for Catholic “farm kids,” according to Charles Hofer, one of the kids who received his first seven years of school there. As transportation became more efficient, the academy's boarding count declined and the space was available when the Cuban crises developed in the early 1960s.

For up to three years, the academy was the home of a group known as the “Colfax Cuban Kids.”

The Cubans, refugees from the Castro takeover, dominated the scene for the last years at St. Patricks. When they left, the academy was shut down.

“It was really our domain. We called it home,” said Audie Reyes Guidi of Colfax, one of three of the Cuban kids still residing in the county.

“There were a lot of stories I could tell about our years there, some of them good and some of them sad,” she noted.

Cuban brothers and sisters were moved to the building. Roy McDonald and Father Cornelius Stefani, now of Pordenone near Venice, Italy, were instrumental in finding the temporary homes for the refugees.

Guidi, a 1966 graduate of Colfax High School, said youngsters remained at the academy from nine months to three years, depending on how soon their parents could get out of Cuba.

Audie and her sister, now Evy Miller of Oakesdale, and brother Juan waited for close to three years before their parents, Fidel and Josephine Reyes, could escape from Cuba. Juan is now a rancher in Wyoming.

The Cubans resided on the top floor, in the old boarding section of the school where the Catholic farm kids had made their home decades earlier. They attended class on the second floor where the JES second and third graders will go to work Tuesday, and they dined on the first floor which serves as a social and meeting hall for St. Patrick's church.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

Aug. 30, 2007

“Wait for Eight!”

That's the advice of Main Street in Colfax, as grain is being shipped by the two major Colfax grain marketers to coast markets as fast as it comes in.

“We have less on the pile this year than ever before,” said Whitman County Growers General Manager Robert Holmes.

Record high prices for wheat and barely have prompted many farmers around Whitman County to sell their freshly harvested crops.

Even before harvest, WCG had sold off nearly one-third of the crop. Almota Elevator Co. also experienced a pre-harvest spike in sales.

“Usually we expect to have one-third of our crop gone by Labor Day, but this year it's more like half,” agreed Almota General Manager Gary Behymer.

Almota has already sold 74 percent of its barley stores, 43 percent of soft white wheat stores and 39 percent of the company's dark northern spring wheat.

Ron Dennison, who loads barges for Almota Elevator at the company's Almota terminal, said he has loaded one or two barges per day for the past month. Each barge holds approximately 3,000 tons of grain to take to Portland.

Farmers contracted to sell portion of their crops as the price of wheat moved up through the past 10 months past $6 and reaching $7 for coast quotes on soft white wheat.

“It was crazy in here,” said Holmes. “In addition to our regular harvest action, we were filling orders left and right.”

“Wait for eight” is the grain companies' advice that prices are expected to continue to rise as worldwide grain reserves continue to shrink.

“There's just not that much good quality wheat in the world,” said Holmes. “Everybody's buying US wheat.”