Good Old Days

125 years ago

The Commoner

July 12, 1895

Elberton is nothing if not progressive.

The “Asphodel of the Palouse” during its short life has always been reaching out for more worlds to conquer and more business to do and is still at it. Its last effort is to develop its natural advantages as a trading place by constructing roads along the water courses. A party of Elberton business men and farmers were before the county commissioners on Tuesday with a petition for a road from Elberton up Silver Creek two miles to connect to the existing road to Garfield.

***

Whitman County is to have an agricultural fair at Colfax, on September 24, 25 and 26, which it is expected will be made one of the best exhibits of fruit, vegetables, grains, grasses, farm and domestic animals ever given on the coast. This much has been determined. The carrying out of that determination is in the hands of the Whitman County fair association, which held its second meeting at the council chamber Tuesday afternoon.

The Tuesday meeting was attended by about 25 leading Colfax business men and farmers and fruit growers from the surrounding section. Permanent organization was perfected, after the reports of preliminary committees had been heard, which determined the meeting to undertake the holding of a Whitman County agricultural fair.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

July 9, 1920

A fire which broke out Saturday night at 11:30 in the upper story of the flour mill destroyed the building, machinery and thousands of dollars worth of wheat and flour. The fire spread across the Palouse River and burned Colfax grain and feed company's building to the ground and threatened to destroy every business building in the block.

The firemen saved the creamery and the laundry building only by the greatest difficulty.

The heat from the burning mill set fire to the green grass and shrubbery and this fire spread to the three homes on Park Street, which were totally destroyed.

The fire was caused from friction of a heavy belt which run off one of the main pulleys in the top of the mill. While the firemen were responding to the call, the mill workers fought the flames with their chemical fire extinguishers but were unable to curb the flames.

***

The Pioneers' picnic will be held in Colfax Saturday and preparations have been completed for the entertainment of the visitors. A basket picnic will be held at Schmuck park at noon and the members of the Commercial club will have a committee at the park who will serve the visitors with ice cream and coffee.

Speaking is to form one of the interesting features of this year's program but the pleasure of meeting the men and women who aided the settlement of the county has not been lost sight of by the officers of the association. The date of the picnic falls on the day that Pioneers' Associaton president Jas. S. Kelmgard settled upon his homestead in the northern part of the city 50 years ago.

75 years ago

The Colfax Gazette-Commoner

July 6, 1945

The county beat the city in the “race” to enact an admission tax, commissioners voting this day Tuesday in the second day of their July sessions. The commissioners met Monday, passed up the Fourth of July and then closed their regular July sessions Thursday.

Lavance Weskil, Colfax theatre operator, appeared to protest, but the commissioners went ahead, passing a five percent admission tax on all amusements in the county, including municipalities (such as Colfax) where no like ordinance is in effect.

Thus coming under the county's action is Rogers field, outside the Pullman city limits and which this fall will see Washington State College resuming football.

***

“Military victory is the end of a quest and the beginning of a task,” R. Herbert J. Wood, associate professor of history and political science at W.S.C., told Colfax Kiwanians Tuesday, warning of the dangers and responsibilities of peace.

“Military victory merely decides which side gets the chance to try to bring peace––of itself it does not bring peace.

“We must recognize that it takes money, effort, sacrifice, retention of some controls, and perhaps even lives themselves to maintain peace. I am utterly aware of all the endless treasure, the material contributions, the lives we have already sacrificed and the lives we still must sacrifice in this bloody war, when I still say that winning the military victory is the easiest task. It is the easiest because it is obvious.”

***

At the last meeting, June 28, of the Colfax Chamber of Commerce until Sept. 5, Raymond Miller, a WSC graduate who is light metals consultant for Bonneville, painted a rosy generalized picture of the light metals future, especially in aluminum for the Northwest, but didn't seem to get much specific response to his suggestion that Colfax too might have industrial possibilities along that line.

“... Let's try to keep the wartime light metals industry in the Northwest,” the speaker appealed, citing the huge developments in aluminum production at Spokane, Troutdale, Tacoma and Longview, these new rolling mills being a major factor in aluminum capacity increasing to five times its pre-war capacity and seven times its pre-war production.

“This is our best opportunity for employment of returning service men and war workers,” he said.

50 years ago

The Colfax Gazette

July 9, 1970

Whitman county's rural population has shrunk nearly one-eighth in the last ten years, according to the preliminary report on the 1970 census. When the census was taken earlier this year, enumerators located only 8,079 persons living outside incorporated areas – as compared to 9,203 ten years ago – a drop of 1,124.

During the same period, all but five of the county's 16 incorporated areas lost population with Colfax leading the list in number, but not in percentage.

While Colfax lost 7.3 percent of it's population during the last decade, Malden was losing 27 per cent, Farmington 23.8 per cent, Tekoa 13.8 per cent, Colton 13 per cent and other smaller percentages.

***

An ex-witch doctor will display her witching charms at the Colfax Seventh-Day Adventist church Wednesday at 8 p.m. The public is invited.

The ex-witch doctor, Mundahoi, came to the United States as a delegate to the world meeting of the General Conference of Sevent-Day Adventists held in Atlantic City, N. J. She is accompanied here by the Rev. and Mrs. W.E. Smith, a former pastor here, who have pioneered missionary work among the headhunters of remote areas of the Sabah.

Besides a skull, which is a normal piece of equipment, Mundahoi will show her charm bracelet which is made from dog, wild boar, water buffalo and monkey teeth, bear claws, pieces of wood and other items. She has memorized prayers that would go nonstop for three days and nights. After attending Christian meetings, she accepted God.

***

Child Evangelism Fellowship of Whitman County is sponsoring five-day clubs in Schmuck Park, July 13-17, at 10 to 11:30 a.m. and in Hamilton Park the same days from 3 to 4 p..m. Pat Maneval and Carol Paine, summer missionaries who have had a week of training at Christian Youth in Action, will be teaching the clubs.

25 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

July 13, 1995

Fallen trees, crop damage, structural damage, downed power lines, mud and water followed severe thunderstorms that struck the area at approximately 4 p.m. Sunday.

Winds were estimated at 65 miles per hour.

Much of Whitman County was without electricity and phones, as crews from Washington Water Power worked to repair transmission structures. WWP construction design representative Larry Wride said that the Elberton and Garfield suffered the most damage.

“It is like a war zone,” Wride said, “That is the only way I can describe it.”

Endicott and LaCrosse were still without power at 12:30 p.m. Monday.

***

The Whitman County Sheriff's Office recently released a statement saying that the office is still searching for a suspect in a rape case which occurred on March 16. A sketch of the suspect has been released, and if residents have any information as to the man's identity, they are asked to contact the sheriff's office.

The suspect is described as a white or native American male, 40 to 50 years of age, unshaven, with laborer's hands. He was last seen wearing a three-quarter length coat.

When the incident occurred, the victim had been traveling on State Route 271, near the McCoy elevators. She stopped her vehicle and stepped out of it. The victim was grabbed from behind.

During the attack, she lost consciousness and was not able to provide authorities with information as to how the suspect left the scene; however it s believed that the suspect left on foot.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

July 8, 2010

Whitman County commissioners Pat O'Neill and Greg Partch were served by Sheriff Brett Myers with papers demanding their recall from office Tuesday morning.

The action was initiated Friday when Roger Whitten of Oakesdale submitted recall orders to Auditor Eunice Coker. Whitten brought the order because he said the two have flaunted the state's Open Public Meetings Act, by acting on business outside of scheduled meeting times.

Partch dismissed Whitten's recall effort as sour grapes over passage of the county's wind turbine ordinance.

***

The first wind farm in Whitman County is just a permit process away.

Two years of collecting meteorological data have given wind farm company First Wind enough information to know Whitman County's Naff Ridge is the site to develop a wind farm.

“We're excited about the potential of bringing wind power to Whitman County,” said Ben Fairbanks, the Boston-based company's director of development for the Northwest.

First Wind will submit an application to the county planning department later this month.

“It's just the perfect combination. If I was going to design a spot, it would be Naff Ridge,” Fairbanks said.

***

An angry crowd Tuesday night criticized the firing of Fire Chief Ralph Walter during an hour-long session in a packed Colfax city council room. City council members, irked they had not been informed of the Walter's dismissal or the reasons behind it, also joined in the fray. Walter, who has been at the center of a month-long city controversy, was fired by Mayor Norma Becker Friday morning just before he was to begin a 24-hour work shift