Good Old Days Aug. 18

125 years ago

The Commoner

Aug. 7, 1891

On Friday last official announcement was made of an agreement by the Northern and Union Pacific companies on a reduction of freight rates on grain from points in the Inland Empire to Portland and the Sound.

The great companies were tardy in coming to an agreement, but have done so at last.

The reduction is not so great as was demanded by the terms of the Wasson bill, and some expressions of dissatisfaction are heard.

However, the granted reduction of 75 cents a ton from the previously existing exorbitant charges will save a vast amount of money to the producers of Eastern Washington and Whitman County even should no further reduction be secured.

Whether any further reduction is made depends now upon the action of the inter-state commerce commission, which has yet to announce its decision on the demand made upon it at Spokane sometime ago, in the hearing of the case brought up by the state Alliance.

The new tariffs are appended with comparisons with old rates. They are for 100 pounds, in carloads of 20,000 pounds.

***

Some buildings are useful, and some are useful and ornamental as well. Of the latter class is the new block on the corner of Main and Wall streets. The front elevation will be extremely handsome. The front of the first story is of massive iron throughout. The building will be very high for two stories. The first story is fifteen feet. The galvanized iron cornice work will extend some five or six feet higher yet, and the dome rising from the center of the front will give it a metropolitan appearance. It will be an ornament to the city. Work is rapidly progressing.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

Aug. 11, 1916

The committee on public park reported at the commercial club meeting Wednesday that L. Schmuck of Walla Walla had donated $3,500 for the purpose of giving to the city of Colfax a public park. The generous offer was received with thanks and many favorable remarks were expressed by the members of the club for Mr. Schmuck's public spirited act.

The gift carries with it the request of the donor, that the park be known as The Schmuck park and that it is given with this understanding and that it is always to be maintained as a public park.

The matter of purchasing the ground for The Schmuck park was taken up, and William Lippitt moved that the park committee purchase the land.

***

When the city marshall of Potlatch arrested C. W. Jones and Walter W. Jensen, who later were implicated in robbing the J. B. Taggart store at Hay by the evidence furnished by the McDonald and Locke boys, who were captured in company with the men, the statement was issued by the officers that the dangerous band of burglars which has been operating in the county for two months, had been captured. Hardly had Jones and Jensen been sentenced until the people of La Crosse reported that the post office at that city had been broken into and the safe robbed.

The robbers who have been operating throughout the county for the last six weeks were men skilled at their trade. The safe at La Crosse is reported to have been blown open and the work denoted that it had been accomplished by men who were well versed in this line of work. That Jones and Jensen were amateurs in this line of work is conceded by nearly every one that has come in contact with these men. The government officers have taken up the work of capturing the gang of burglars since the post office safe at La Crosse was robbed last Thursday evening and as these men are experts in capturing criminals, some results are looked for from this source.

More than twenty-five stores have been broken into during the summer months.

75 years ago

Colfax Gazette Commoner

Aug. 8, 1941

The state highway department last week let a $75,771 contact to F. R. Hewett, Spokane, for the resurfacing and light bituminous treatment of the 15 miles between Pullman and Palouse on the eastern division of Primary Highway No. 3. Work was to start soon after the letting of the contract.

The project calls for four inches of base rock and three inches of topping and a coat of light oil on the surface.

Construction work on the state bridge over the Palouse river three miles west of Hooper is 30 per cent completed, J. A. Masterson, division supervisor, estimates. Here the state is spending approximately $40,000 on Secondary Highway 11-B, with completion of the work expected about October 15.

These two projects represent all the construction to be done in this division this year, but an extensive building program is anticipated next year, Mr. Masterson said.

***

That Colfax would be within easy range of bombers in the event of war is evidenced in the establishment of air bases at Spokane, declared Robert S. Neilson, emergency defense commissioner for Pullman in a talk on local preparation for defense at the Kiwanis club luncheon Tuesday noon.

Although railroads, highways and rivers are virtually indistinct at an altitude of 15,000 feet, the tops of grain elevators are nearly as visible in daylight as beacons at night and can be hit six times in ten tries so accurate is the new bomb sight, Neilson asserted.

50 years ago

Colfax Gazette

Aug. 11, 1966

Ranches in the Lacrosse area and the Colfax Elks Golf course are feeling the same threat of water shortage, with the Palouse river's runoff at a new record low.

Irrigation pumps along the sluggish stream are having trouble supplying water to hay and pasture land as well as the Colfax golf links.

At the golf course dynamite was used to blast the river well and provide water for the 40 sprinklers on the course system, according to Howard Sevdy. About 30 acres of grassland are watered out of the river well on the north fork of the Palouse river north of Colfax. The course was actually dry Friday and Saturday as the river failed to provide water for the sprinkler system, Sevdy said.

Enough water seemed to be available after the dynamite was used Sunday. A two-inch line from the Colfax city system provides enough water to the course to run four sprinklers.

25 years ago

Colfax Gazette

Aug. 8, 1991

A public hearing is scheduled Sept. 26 in Ritzville on opening the Milwaukee Road Corridor for non-motorized use year round. The trail now closes from June 16 until Sept. 30 east of the Columbia River.

Written comments will be accepted until Sept. 30. A decision will be made Oct. 3.

Hearings were scheduled July 24 in Issaquah and July 25 in Ritzville but several people said they needed more time to study the proposal, said Jim Monroe. No decision will be made until the hearing, he said.

Monroe works in the southeast region office of the state Department of Natural Resources in Ellensburg.

Many interested in attending the hearings were in the middle of harvest and didn't have the time or energy to attend, he commented. This gives them more time.

By November 1990, the state Department of Natural Resources had received more than 200 letters requesting the trail be opened year round, he said, so they decided to schedule the hearings.

The John Wayne Trail cuts across the northern third of Whitman County.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

Aug. 10, 2006

Small roads and bridge projects topped the priority list for the county's six-year transportation improvement program, and several named bridges are slated for replacement with funding in place.

County Engineer Mark Storey noted 70-75 wooden bridges in the county need replacing.

After a public hearing Monday, the county commissioners adopted the improvement plan outlining $25.7 million in projects through 2012.

Funding is secure for $4.8 million in improvements, of which $363,000 is local funding. The rest of the secured funding is federal dollars.

Public Works Director Dane Dunford said project costs are difficult to predict as the prices for steel and asphalt are rising. He also noted there is no mechanism to go back and ask for more funding if final project costs exceed beginning funding requests.

***

The county commission released a 19-page opinion from a Spokane attorney on the legal footing of the proposed zoning ordinance Monday. Commissioner Jerry Finch has kept the document under wraps, citing client-attorney privilege.

The commission discussed with prosecutor Denis Tracy whether to grant public access to opinion during a Monday workshop prior to its regular meeting session.

Brian McGinn of Winston & Cashatt Lawyers, Spokane, issued the opinion June 23 on potential legal issues for the proposed zoning ordinance, focusing on updates to the ag district section. The county commission contracted McGinn, who has land-use expertise, for $5,000.

Since the county received the opinion, several residents have told the Gazette they were denied verbal requests for copies of from the board clerk.

In regular session Finch defended his prior position, noting a copy of the legal opinion had “attorney-client privilege” written on it.