Good Old Days: July 25, 2019

125 years ago

The Commoner

July 27, 1894

Following the suggestion made in last week’s Commoner, the Colfax Chamber of Commerce, in special session on Monday afternoon, unanimously adopted resolution asking the general manager and receiver of the O. R. & N. company to reduce the rates on grain shipments to Portland from $4.75 to $3.25 per ton. If an appreciable reduction can be made, the farmers of the Palouse country who practically lost last year’s crop, would be able to realize advantageously at even the present low market.

***

Two teams of Colfax fishermen started out Saturday for the headwaters of the St. Mary’s river. The teams will spend three days at their destination, and will engage in a contest for the championship in the science of corralling the coquettish trout.

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When the Commoner announced the other day that we would avoid a venomous, malicious, dirty, vilifying campaign, we meant just what we said. We did not say that we should cease to lay bare such cowardly and unscrupulous methods when employed by others. We were not aware that we were “running up a white flag,” either. We shall never cease in branding a falsehood or denouncing a liar. Neither shall we knowingly make any statement regarding any party or candidate that is not absolutely true and can be so proven if required. If publishing, for instance, the profane and sacrilegious utterance delivered by Candidate Tobin in the populist convention, or denouncing the author of the willfully false report of the democratic central committee meeting which appeared in the Advocate last week as an unmitigated liar, is “throwing mud,” we may be depended upon to throw more and lots of it whenever and wherever warranted.

***

The information comes from Washington that the work of the Census Bureau is almost complete. That is to say, the statistics of the census taken in 1890 will be ready for distribution before the end of 1894. Up until the present time it has cost $10,365,677. The cost of the census has probably not been more than the information it contains is worth to the people, if the work had been performed with reasonable expedition. But a decennial census report that requires four years to get out is of little practical use. It is true that a vast number of bulletins have been issues, containing information on special subjects, and a few volumes have been given to the public of great value.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

June 27, 1919

The hottest weather of the season occurred in the Palouse country this week and the harvest workers were forced to work under disadvantages this week right at the beginning of the harvest season. Monday and Tuesday were the hottest days of the season, the thermometer registering 98 degrees in the shade Tuesday and just what it registered in the wheat field under a sweltering sun is not known.

The grain is ripening very fast and farmers who are reaping their grain with binders were forced to continue work in order to cut the grain before it becomes ripe enough to shatter.

***

Jas. A Perkins, the father of Colfax and the dean of all pioneers of Spokane and Whitman counties, had the place of honor on the program at Manito park last Saturday and she spoke interestingly of the early struggles of men and women who had worked and labored and suffered to build this great state of Washington.

Mr. Perkins was the oldest pioneer of the state what attended the reunion with the exception of Mrs. Delaney who was one of the orphan children that was a resident of the Marcus Whitman home at the time the inmates were massacred by the indians.

***

Chas. L. MacKenzie, manager of the Whitman County Fair, announced this week that the dates for the Fair had been set and the dates were being published. The fair will open on the 7th of October and it will close Saturday night October 11th.

There will be five days of fast races and the program this year will be one of the best racing programs that has ever been given in Colfax.

75 years ago

The Colfax Gazette-Commoner

July 14, 1944

The war food administration announced through the Whitman County Triple-A office here this week that the loan rate on 1944 wheat had been increased 7 cents a bushel.

Instead of the $1.20 ½ loan rate announced late in May, the new rate will be an estimated $1.27 ½ at Colfax for No. 1 soft white and approximately 1 ½ cents more at points in western Whitman County, depending on the freight rate at the coast.

***

A Chevrolet army truck which is to carry equipment for the fighting of rural fires, particularly in grain fields within much of the territory covered by five granges adjacent to Colfax was purchased at Galena, near Spokane, Wednesday by Roy Endsley, chairman of the rural fire district committee created a year ago, and Fire Chief Earl Krouse, Colfax. The price paid was $644, for a truck other than one for which the committee expected to pay $875.

***

Arrival of warmer weather brings the strong urge to Mr. and Mrs. Public to get out “in the open” for picnics and beach parties―and accompanying this pleasure is the constant danger of “food poisoning,” according to Dr. W. A. Mitchell, acting county health officer.

50 years ago

The Colfax Gazette

July 17, 1969

Four of the record-length concrete beams went on piers at Elberton Tuesday and the fifth and final beam was enroute Wednesday as moving of the West’s longest prestressed bridge entered its final stages.

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Sparked by the enthusiasm of some of the city’s younger businessmen, a zanier-than-ever Krazee Daze trade promotion is scheduled for tomorrow and Saturday in Colfax.

In addition to bargain prices on nearly everything―at nearly every business establishment in the city―merchants and their employees are planning to “dress up” for the promotion, in Hawaiian styles.

***

Reflecting a new system of buying wheat in their country, five Japanese flour milling technician will be touring Whitman County Friday on their way to a noon luncheon at Washington state university. The Japanese experts will be “trying to determine out ability to service” their need in a more competitive world wheat market, according to Scott Hanson, administrator of the Washington Wheat Commission.

25 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

July 28, 1994

Demolition crews began tearing down the older portions of the Endicott School building on Monday, July 18.

Portions of the school built in 1910 and 1926 are being completely razed, while a newer portion, built in 1960, will remain standing, but will undergo some renovations.

***

Until recently, no new explanations have surfaced in regards to the large canola crop theft near Steptoe that made state-wide news in June.

“We have run completely out of leads/ there are no suspects, no leads,” said Sergeant Don Anderson.

However, a resident of Pateros wrote a letter to Wayne Olsen, an Intermountain Canola Co. economist, informing Olsen of this answer to the mystery.

It was aliens.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

July 23, 2009

Hawkins project manager Jeff DeVoe said Tuesday the company’s proposed stripmall at the Idaho stateline will wait until the national economy recovers.

“Hawkins is still committed to the project. We’re not going anywhere,” DeVoe told an audience of reporters inside the courthouse.

***

Fecal coliform levels in the south fork of the Palouse River are twice the allowed amount, especially in the last 1.5 miles of the river which goes through the flood control channel at Colfax, according to a warning issued Thursday from the state Department of Ecology.