Good Old Days: July 2, 2020

The Commoner

125 years ago

June 21, 1895

A recent issue of the Review, under date of Colfax, publishes the following: “Frequent rumors are heard regarding the intention of the Great Northern to tap this country with a branch line from Harrington.

The route has been surveyed once or twice and only a few weeks ago a party of engineers passed through here on their way to Lewiston, presumably to survey a continuation of the route into the Camas prairie country.

There is an excellent natural roadbed through Sprague and by the mouth of the Rock lake up Pleasant valley to this place and on up Spring flat to Uniontown and Lewiston, which would probably be the route of any branch coming in here from the Great Northern.

***

L.R. Benner, who was arrested on Saturday at his home near Willow Creek school house, for burglary, will be given an opportunity to demonstrate his innocence of the crime charged before Justice Kirkland on Tuesday next, June 25. He is in jail awaiting that date. The arrest of Benner was made by Deputy Sheriff Eacho after after having found in his possession a lot of chattels stolen from Mesars Doane, Reddinger and Hopkins, three settlers in the Dunlor vicinity.

Doane, Reddinger and Hopkins are three bachelors having cabins on land claims there, and were frequently away from their cabins for days at a time this spring. Upon returning each man would find that his cabin had been opened and meat, flour, groceries and other things stolen.

***

The Colfax Cycle club now have their half-mile track in as good shape as it is possible to put a dirt track, and the boys in training are persistently preparing for the meet on July 4, when it is confidently expected that all northwest, and very probably some of the coast records, will be smashed to smithereens.

Practice runs on the track have lowered all the short distance track records, while the five-mile coast record has been equaled at training runs.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

June 25, 1920

Ernest Sievers, a man about 50 years old, and a resident of Rosalia, was arraigned on the charge of insanity and he was committed to the asylum at Medical Lake. The man admitted he had been drinking patent medicine. He answered questions which were put to him by the doctors in as sane and intelligent a manner as any one. He appeared to be dull from the effects of the medicine which he had drank but there was nothing to denote that the man was insane.

Mrs. Sievers stated that he was spending money for auto hire and he was giving money to other men to bring him his supply of favorite beverage. She stated that if he was sent to the asylum she would get possession of the money and thus save it from being squandered.

After a consultation, the doctors agreed to send him to the asylum, stating that there was no other place that the man could be sent.

Under the laws of the state, the opinion of two physicians is sufficient to send any one to the asylum and this decision can be reached after a brief examination.

Sievers appeared before the insanity board without counsel and looked to be suffering from the effects of a drink. He is said to own property at Rosalia and his wife stated to the prosecuting attorney that he had a considerable amount of money.

75 Years Ago

The Colfax Gazette-Commoner

June 29, 1945

Marine First Lieutenant John F. Kinney of Endicott and Colfax has lived up to the hero tradition throughout, for he is the first Whitmanite to make good an escape from Japanese incarceration and one of the extremely few Americans in the whole war to make good a break from Jap custody without the help of advancing Yank armies.

Lt. Kinney made good his escape apparently from a Jap prison camp near Shanghai, where he was located when his parents – Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Kinney – last heard from him a month ago, getting a card he had written Sept. 12, 1944.

No details of the escape are yet available. However, General A. A. Vandergrift, commander of the Marine Corps, from Washington, D.C., Tuesday sent a telegram to the parents announcing the escape. Gerneral Vandergrift said that Lt. Kinney is now in Free China and is on his way back.

***

Whitman's first county librarian will be Miss Gladys M. Bowles, who is now serving as city librarian at Lewiston, Idaho and the new county library will begin to function Sept. 1.

County headquarters for the library are to be located in the C.E. Perryman building at the corner of Wall and Main Street in Colfax.

***

Mayor W.B. Hutcheson Monday presented Colfax manager of Railway Express company office here, a gold lapel pin signifying 10 years of operation through Colfax streets without an accident. The award was brought to Colfax by R.H. Smith of Walla Walla, traveling auditor for the firm.

Only a few of the 15,000 Railway Express trucks in the nation could qualify for this 10-year award and in Washington only five such awards were made.

50 years ago

The Colfax Gazette

July 2, 1970

Port Almota, dubbed “Whitman County's gateway to the sea” by the state department of commerce and economic development, will be “in business” next Tuesday.

That's the word from officials of Almota Elevator Co., who expect to load the first wheat from that area into a barge for the first time in many years next Tuesday and made plans for holding an open house.

***

Sleepy Almota on the banks of the meandering Snake River has bowed to progress but Chester Knott, the man who has lived at Almota long enough to claim the title of honorary mayor, still retains the outlook which has made him a favorite citizen of Palouse country.

Chester now makes his home at St. Ignatius Manor in Colfax. He left Almota in May of 1969 after preparations for the Little Goose reservoir and Port Almota were underway. He went to the former Almota section house and called a taxi, one of his favorite means of travel.

His move to Colfax marked the end of about 18 years living in a riverside abode he calls “the shack.”

25 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

July 6, 1995

On May 26, EPA granted a section 18 exemption to the Washington and Idaho Departments of Agriculture for the use of Roundup and Roundup RT to control Canada thistle in peas, lentils and chickpeas, according to a bulletin from the Dry Pea and Lentil Council. The original extension would have expired on July 1. But due to the wet weather, and a late spring, the extension for Washington farmers has been moved to July 1. Idaho farmers were granted an extension until Sept. 1.