Good Old Days

125 years ago

The Commoner

May 17, 1895

The Colfax Dramatic Company has concluded to give the “Hick'ry Farm” at Pioneer Hall this evening. It was postponed from last Monday night on account of sickness in the family of one of the participants. The company has been holding rehearsals during the week, and the various actors are practically perfect. The performance promises to be as artistically forcible as any performance given Colfax, even by first class professional actors. Much will be made of the comedy part of the play, Mrs. Bellinger and Mr. Erwin giving promise of developing all the fun possible from their characters. Seats are on sale at Hamilton's.

***

The Spokane Chronicle says: “Spokane riders will not participate in the races Decoration day of the Colfax Cycle club. The boys are too swift for the Palousers and as soon as it was known that the Spokane cracks would attend, the meet was declared to be for club members only and outside competitors were barred.” If the Colfax club now gives the Spokane wheelmen any chance at the meeting this month, it will seem like a confession that the claim made above had a basis in fact. Such a sentiment could not have found space in a newspaper unless inspired by the very riders who are disgruntled.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

May 14, 1920

An enthusiastic meeting of farmers was held at the courthouse last Saturday afternoon and the principal address was delivered by A. A. Elmore, state president of the Farmers' Union.

Mr. Elmore was present to urge the farmers to join the wheat growers' association, which he stated, has been endorsed by a number of bankers of the Inland Empire, approving of the organization and in their endorsement of the movement, the letters stated that a membership in the organization of wheat growers will not weaken the credit of the individual farmers.

Mr. Elmore pointed out the benefits that would accrue to the farmers by having their own wheat sales organization and he insisted that the day for co-operative selling by the farmers had arrived.

The speaker insisted that the farmers had lost $40,000,000 last year for lack of co-operative selling and substantiated the statement by quoting Senator Poindexter as an authority for these figures. He insisted that after the first of June, the farmers would be wholly without the governments' stability of prices, and the farmers would be at the mercy of the wheat speculators and boards of trade.

***

The Whitman County pioneers are to hold their annual picnic at Colfax on July 10. The date was selected for the reason that it marks a period of a half century since the first settlement was made in this city by J. A. Perkins, who is known as the father of Colfax.

Mr. Perkins arrived at the present site of Colfax on July 10, 1870, and settled on a homestead in the northern part of the city. He has resided on the land since that date and his present city residence located in the city occupies a part of the homestead he acquired in his boyhood days.

Fifty years has passed since the day Mr. Perkins crossed the hills and entered the Colfax valley and the date of the pioneers' picnic this year will be held on the 50th anniversary of this settlement.

75 years ago

The Colfax Gazette-Commoner

May 18, 1945

The 140 acres of land on the William Kramlich farm near the cemetery were rejected as the location for a county-owned airport following an inspection Wednesday by Richard T. Puckey, assistant supervisor of airports, and Jack Reavey, airport engineer, for the civil aeronautics authority, on whose approval depended the choice of the site. The reason given by the C.A.A. officials was that Colfax should have a No. 2 airport, which would accommodate large transport planes, while the proposed site is only large enough for a No. 1 field, on which only cubs and trainers could land.

The chamber of commerce had raised a fund of $1,000 for an option to purchase the acreage from Kramlich when county money, budgeted for 1946, became available.

The airport committee of the chamber of commerce will meet next Monday to discuss other plans, Chairman E. C. Huntley announced.

***

By their vote Saturday, 99 landowners in south central Whitman County approved formation of a soil conservation district embracing all of the Colfax Triple-A community except that part not already included in a conservation district. Eighty-eight of the votes cast were favorable.

After the polling book check is made and approved by the state soil conservation committee, two supervisors will be named and plans made for the nomination and election of three additional supervisors. The referendum Saturday was held in the office of the county agent in Colfax with Russell Looney, Mrs. Harry Sanders, Mrs. Henry Ackerman and B. B. Strevy as polling officers.

50 years ago

The Colfax Gazette

May 14, 1970

Colfax elementary school will be officially renamed “Leonard M. Jennings Elementary School” as a highlight of “Leonard Jennings Day,” May 24, Colfax school directors decided Monday night.

A request that the school be renamed in honor of Jennings, principal for the last 17 years, was made by a committee headed by Teachers Marie Streib, Jim McClelland and Ed Olson.

They announced that a public reception will be held at the elementary school Sunday, May 24, from 2 to 4 p.m. in honor of Jennings, who has been associated with the Colfax school system for the past 32 years. The public is invited to the reception.

The committee has planned the reception and asked for renaming of the elementary school “in recognition of Jennings' 32 years of devoted and outstanding service to the community, not only in education, but in youth, civic and fraternal organization.”

***

First occupants of the newly-remodeled quarters of the Old National Bank's Colfax office would have a hard time recognizing any part of their original surroundings.

Accurate information on date of the building's construction is unavailable without searching the files of the Colfax Gazette, but several “old-timers” recall that the building first housed a hardware store – and it probably didn't have marble floors and marble columns supporting the second floor.

And of course, it didn't have the new modern décor that has covered up or replaced most of the marble for the ONB's 1970-era office.

Barroll & Mahony operated a hardware store in the building shortly after the turn of the century – according to several old-timers who were there, as young men.

25 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

May 18, 1995

Plans for a new $250,000 club house at the Colfax Golf Course were placed on a back burner Monday night after a survey of members failed to generate enough financial pledges to start the project.

The majority of members who returned the pledge forms endorse the project, but the response wasn't strong enough.

However, the generally positive results of the survey has led the building committee to suggest development of a capital improvement fund which could bring about a new building in possibly three years.

The club's building committee had hoped to receive $150,000 in pledges and donations and finance and balance of the project with a $100,000 loan. The survey, which went out to 172 members, noted the committee would drop plans for the loan if the pledges and donations failed to total $150,000.

***

Whitman County Commissioners have awarded the Rock Lake Safety Project bid to Motley and Motley of Pullman. The project involves removal of the former Milwaukee Railroad overpass which is considered one of the most hazardous sites on the county road system.

The overpass, which has remained after the Milwaukee tracks were pulled over 15 years ago, was seen as increasingly dangerous as traffic flow increased on the Rock Lake road north from its intersection with highway 23 at Ewan.

“There have been a lot of wrecks at that overpass,” Arlene Bailey commented.

The hazard, she explained, was the sharp corners on the approach to the overpass. The corner has taken its toll of trucks and cars when drivers found themselves unable to slow in time to make the sharp corner. Fertilizer trucks, which have wide variations in cargo loads, are a particular victim of the corner, Bailey said.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

May 20, 2010

The state Department of Transportation project to repave eight miles of Highway 195 from Colton south to the Idaho state line is now in full swing.

Crews Monday began the first phase, 10 days work through Uniontown. Crews should be wrapping up in the town by May 26.

The second phase of the construction will focus on resurfacing the highway between Colton to Uniontown and from Uniontown to the Idaho/ Washington border.

The DOT expects the total project will take two months to complete.

Traffic through Uniontown is down to one lane, with flaggers directing highway traffic 24 hours a day.

An estimated 5,000 vehicles a day use the highway through Uniontown, said Uniontown City Clerk Cheryl Waller.

***

Mary Mullen of Pullman wheels her Subaru wagon down a gravel road into the Palouse River Canyon.

“I just love this road,” she says as she looks over from behind the steering wheel.

Beginning in 2006, Mullen set out with her Subaru, which she has named Hanako (Japanese for flower child) to drive down every road in the county.

As she reaches the bottom of the Grove Road grade, the gravel road turns into a literal goat path.

Wary of pressing too far onto private property, Mullen stops to ask a farmer who is patching his fence if it is okay for her to proceed.

“Well, that's all county road right there,” he replies, pointing down a road which is barely indistinguishable from a typical Whitman County wheat field.