Good Old Days: Oct. 19, 2017

125 years ago

The Commoner

October 21, 1892

The Elberton Mercantile Company filed articles of incorporation with the auditor Thursday. The business of the company is buying and selling on its own account and on commission merchandise of all kinds, all agricultural products and general warehousing.

***

The Statesman correspondence at Huntington reports good progress being made in the work of clearing the boulders from the rapids at the Snake River. Two scows have been built at a cost of $70,000 and a crew on each is now at work in the rapids. It is expected to have a clear channel 150 feet wide and four feet deep prepared by next summer. The correspondence predicts that the opening of the Seven Devils mining district likely next year.

***

Colfax has enjoyed a remarkable growth this season. In addition to the large amount of public improvements, notable among the sewer and water systems, at a cost of some $60,000, and a $30,000 high school, more buildings have been erected than in any other year in the history of the city. These embrace a number of handsome brick buildings, among which may be named the elegant two-story structures of Livingstone & Kuhn, J.H. Bellinger, Ben Binnard, Colfax Hardware Co., and J.D. Ellis.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

October 19, 1917

In order to stir up interest in the second Liberty bond issues, Mr. Klemgard, a former banker of Pullman proposes that worthless mining stocks be collected for a bonfire. The paper value of the stocks and bonds to be fed to the flames are estimated to be about $1,000,000.

75 years ago

The Colfax Gazette-Commoner

October 16,1942

Tons of scrap was collected from Monday of last week to and including Monday of this week by pupils of the two grade schools and high school of Colfax, according to Howard Moses, high school principal.

***

_______ ______ took his own life Wednesday morning by hanging himself with a halter chain in a barn on his home property at Albion. The body was found by his wife on returning after making a phone call across the street. He was partially blind and had been in ill health following a recent stroke.

50 years ago

Colfax Gazette

October 19, 1967

Rome Endsley told the Gazette Thursday night that he has accepted a position with a Spokane wholesale floral supply firm and will not rebuild his store, which was completely destroyed by fire the morning of Oct 1.

***

Roger Pennell, 17-year-old Garfield high school senior, is undergoing treatment at St. Ignatius hospital for second degree burns on the left side of his face resulting an accident in the chemistry lab at Garfield high school. A mixture of sulphur, potassium, and manganese oxide in a test tube being held over a burner by another student exploded, showering the left side of Pennell's face with chemicals. None of the mixture struck his eye.

25 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

October 22, 1992

A former St. John resident and Pullman city councilperson was tentatively identified Wednesday morning as one of two victims of a Tuesday afternoon fire in Pullman. The other was tentatively identified as from Spokane. Pullman firefighters were dispatched to a fire at the AFA Paint Depot on College Avenue at 2:40 p.m on Tuesday. The fire was reported by a WSU Physical Plant employee who saw the smoke. Heavy smoke was reported coming from the building so a second alarm was called. A third crew from WSU also joined in fighting the blaze.

***

The county will do minor repairs this winter to the roofs at the county jail, Public Service Building,and the old Public Works building, according to maintenance department director Bob Reynolds. Repairs will include resealing the roof coat, resealing the metal covering joints and applying an aluminum maintenance coating to prolong the roofs' life.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

October 18, 2007

The last recorded sighting of a live Giant Palouse Earthworm was made 19 years ago on Moscow Mountain by two people from the University of Idaho. Another encounter with the worm was recorded three years ago in Whitman County near Albion, but that incident left the worm severed.

***

A formal charge of taking a motor vehicle was filed last Tuesday in superior court against a Colfax resident. The charge follows allegations he took an ATV from a hangar at the airport in Colfax, Sept 25, and rode it to LaCrosse. A deputy patrolling Highway 26 that night encountered the ATV traveling at a high rate of speed. The deputy turned his vehicle around, but the pursuit ended when the ATV rider went into a field.