Good old Days: July 16, 2020

125 years ago

The Commoner

July 19, 1895

Thursday morning Prosecuting Attorney Canfield moved that the case of the state vs. G.M. Eddie, charged with grand larceny, be dismissed and the defendant be discharged.

This action was taken after one of the hottest legal contests enlivening justice court proceedings in Colfax for a long time.

G.M. Eddie, well known in Colfax as a painter and decorator, for several months past has been following the business of photography. During June he was located in Elberton, and having given the inhabitants there ample opportunity of securing the “shadow e'er the substance fades” – for a consideration concluded to move his apparatus to Pullman and begin business there.

He first contracted with a man named Boggs to take him, but afterwards changing his mind, had another man do the work. Boggs sued him for the contract price and a verdict was given him for $1 and costs.

Eddie refusing or neglecting to pay the judgment, an attachment had been issued, Constable Guernsey had gone to Pullman, seized the goods and brought them back to Elberton, where they were stored in the livery stable of Frank Weaver.

On Monday, July 8, Eddie by advice of counsel, went to the stable and, taking the goods, loaded them in a wagon and drove off to Moscow.

***

One thing is certain. Whitman County will hold an agricultural and fruit fair this fall at Colfax. Whether it will have the added attractions of a live stock exhibit and agricultural horse trot depends upon whether the newly organized fair association succeeds in obtaining the use of the fair grounds below the city. Lease of the grounds and track is held at present by Frank Bowman, now off on the race circuit. He has been written to, but an answer has not been received.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

July 16, 1920

The big three-story red barn that faces Mill Street caught fire early Monday morning.

When the siren whistle sounded an hour and forty minutes after midnight, and it was discovered that the red barn was on fire, the firemen as well as every man and woman in the city immediately realized that the greatest fire that had ever occurred in Colfax was under way.

The barn stood in one of the business blocks of the city, and for years the business men, who occupied the business places in this block agreed that when the red barn burned, the fire would sweep every business place in the block. The insurance companies were under the same impression and insurance rates increased steadily from year to year.

***

One of the heaviest rains that has ever occurred in this county swept over Colfax Tuesday evening. As soon as the storm moved over the city, the wind changed and it brought the storm back again. By this time the streets had become full of running water which had come down from the hill tops and the sewers were unable to carry off the deluge.

The extraordinary rainfall weakened the retaining wall along the river bank and the warehouse of the Emerson-Knox Company toppled into the river, carrying down with it the bridge that spans the stream. About a hundred feet of retaining wall went into the river and more of it will fall as soon as the building which braces it is removed.

75 years ago

The Colfax Gazette-Commoner

July 13, 1945

A MIRACLE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT is also being done each week by the Gazette-Commoner back shop and office workers who are left. Seven former full-time newspaper workers have gone into uniform during the war and the handful who are left are having to put their first run on the press Monday night and the second run Tuesday night in order to hit publication schedules with a war-time paper often cramped for space and with the biggest circulation in all history.

***

Ensign Ralph E Kile, Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph E. Kile, Sr., Thornton, bagged his first enemy plane while flying in support of landings of American troops on Okinawa. He intercepted a Nip reconnaissance bomber, apparently on a suicide mission over Kerama Rotto, one of the small islands taken by American forces in the Ryukus operation.

Accompanied by three other Wildcat pilots, diving from an altitude of 10,000 feet, the Navy airman had just broken through the clouds when he found himself on the tail of the enemy plane. Pulling out of his dive, Ensign Kile climbed in pursuit, firing a burst in the tail of the Jap plane which caused it to burst into flames and crash into the water.

***

Wartime limits on farmers' application of fertilizer have been relaxed with dealers and manufacturers no longer required to obtain the special application forms before making delivery. Limits on the use of edible oilseed meal in fertilizer are being retrained and the provisions which prescribe “approved grades” of mixed fertilizer and which direct manufacturers, dealers and agents to distribute in their customary area and to make available a specified percentage of their fertilizer materials for home mixing.

The amended order permits use of any approved grade for Victory gardens.

25 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

July 20, 1995

Whitman County commissioners signed a resolution Monday requesting that Whitman County be declared a disaster area. The resolution, if accepted by Governor Mike Lowry, will allow for special circumstances for farmers who suffered high crop damage during the July 9 storm.

Although original estimates tell of some $50 million in damage to crops and structures in the county, Mike Largent, president of the Whitman County Association of Wheat Growers, felt that the actual devastation is much greater than anticipated.

For county road damages, an overall total of $500,400 has been reported.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

July 15, 2010

Faced with a steep drop in revenue, the Colfax school board Monday passed a budget for the coming school year that is $286,000 less than last year.

The 2010-11 budget also has a $237,840 deficit, which will be balanced out of the district's reserves.

Total charted for the 2009-10 school year was $6,549,262. The total projected expenditures for next year are $6,263,835.

Biggest boost for the budget was the departure of four employees, whose combined salaries totaled $198,075 plus more than $50,000 in benefits.

Superintendent Michael Morgan said the district avoided layoffs this year by continuing to chip smaller pieces out of many different school expenses.

***

A two-man Washington State Patrol explosives team from the Tri-Cities removed two shells from a barn at the Anne Hogue residence east of Dusty July 8. The WSP duo checked out the shells, which were on a shelf in the barn, and decided they did not pose an immediate danger. They carried the shells, which weighed about 20 pounds each, out of the barn and placed them in a trailer behind their special truck.

Mrs. Hogue said she decided to request removal of the shells after she noticed powder-like material coming from one of them. She noted her husband, the late James Hogue, had a wide variety of interests and probably placed the shells in the barn. Mr. Hogue, a retired WSU research physicist, died March 9 at age 73.