Good Old Days: August 13, 2020

125 Years Ago

The Commoner

August 16, 1895

Miss Pearl Van Loon on Wednesday evening celebrated her fifteenth birthday, with a nice little party to her young friends. The hours from 7 to 11 were pleasantly spent in games, guessing of conundrums, conversation and participation in a little feast prepared by the young hostess. Twenty conundrums given to be answered occupied the attention of guests for an hour or more. Laura James won the prize, while to Ora Davis was given the booby prize for having solved the least number of knotty problems.

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Quite a serious upset and runaway occurred Monday forenoon, resulting in Miss Norma Hamilton having her left knee cap broken and Mrs. Hamilton being severely wrenched and bruised.

Mrs. Hamilton, accompanied by four of the younger members of the family, was en route to the farm on Union Flat. Boyd Hamilton was driving. Just as the party were passing the Lansdale place on Spring flat, the bolt holding one side of the tongue to the front axle, slipped out, that side of the tongue dropped down and all the draft being on one side, the carriage was run off the high grade and tipped over, throwing the occupants into the rocks below.

As the wagon turned over the horses sprang forward, pulling Hamilton out of the wagon. After dragging him several yards, the horses got away from him and ran up the flat several miles before being captured.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

August 13, 1920

The general rain which fell thru-out the entire county Monday checked harvest operations just one day. The rain at Colfax was a heavy rain for the month of August. Many of the farmers took advantage of the rain to work their summerfallow land which is in better shape than it has been for the last three years.

The present harvest will likely be a short one as every threshing crew is running full-handed and workers were never more plentiful. Every train that comes in to the city brings in a force of harvest workers and there has been a large crowd of men in this city available for harvest work since the first of the month.

75 years ago

The Colfax Gazette-Commoner

August 17, 1945

In their hearts more than in noisy demonstrations the people of Colfax celebrated the capitulation of Japan.

With the sounding of the fire siren at 4 o’clock Tuesday aternoon, auto horns blared, gained in volume for the first hour or two, then died down and the town resumed the “even tenor of its way” until a free picture show and street dance again gave evidence of jubilation.

Manager Lavance Weskil opened his Rose theater to all and youngsters, after splattering the streets with paper scraps from the conveniently located salvage station, danced to the music of a juke box, hurriedly arranged for with Orville Chase by A. W. Meyers of the American Legion. The dance was repeated for a larger crowd Wednesday night.

The liquor store and taverns, on orders from the state board, closed promptly. Few there were who exceeded the bounds of temperance.

50 Years Ago

Colfax Gazette

August 13, 1970

Harold Johnson of Pine City caught a bobcat kitten in the railroad tunnel Sunday and Thursday sold it to “John’s Jungle Land” in Spokane, which has many animals for children and their parents to enjoy.

25 Years Ago

Whitman County Gazette

August 17, 1995

Colfax High School will be getting a new principal this fall. Duane Gottschalk, a native of the Palouse region, will be taking on the job this coming school year. Gottschalk, who was born in Moscow, lived for six years with his parents in Palouse.

“We really liked Whitman County when we lived here before , and Colfax has a wonderful statewide reputation. They are one of the only gem schools left in Eastern Washington,” Gottschalk said.

Gottschalk said that the position at Colfax was the only one to which he had applied. He replaces Rich Hilty who retired, concluding a 30-year career with three years in the position of Colfax principal.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

August 12, 2010

Whitman County’s Farm Service Agency committee has asked county commissioners’ permission to lift the cap on the amount of county land that can be enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program.

Federal regulations limit the amount of county land that can be enrolled in CRP to 25 percent of a county’s cropland. Whitman County currently has 191,457 acres, or 18 percent of its cropland enrolled in CRP.

Under CRP, landowners receive payments under long-term contracts to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production. Whitman County is 70,135 acres away from the 25 percent limit.

This September, 249 contracts on 14,226 acres of cropland will expire. By 2015, more than 120,000 acres of Whitman County ground will come out of CRP.