Good Old Days March 9

125 years ago

The Commoner

March 4, 1892

J. E. Nessly, editor of the Oakesdale Alliance Advocate, has filed a suit for libel against the Gazette Publishing Co., of Colfax, fixing his damages at $10,000.

The suit is based on an article in the Gazette, which charged that Nessly, at the time of his bargaining for the Advocate, had appealed to Congresswoman Wilson’s friends for aid, promising to swing the influence of the Advocate to their political support if they would loan him the amount necessary to consummate the bargain; that they refused, whereupon Mr. Nessly went to Tacoma and got the money from a democratic banker in that city through the influence of R. C. McCroskey, upon the condition that he would work for the democrats in the impending campaign.

This, Mr. Nessly denounces as a lie from beginning to end.

***

At about 3:30 o’clock last Sunday morning, the fire was discovered in E. Smith’s general merchandise store at Elberton.

It was first seen by his 10-year-old daughter, who was awakened by a choking sensation.

As soon as she awoke she found that the room in which she was sleeping was full of smoke and at once aroused her parents.

They succeeded in getting the children out of the burning building, but were both entirely overcome by heat and smoke, Mrs. Smith fainting away.

It was some time before she recovered.

By this time the town generally was aroused and people began gathering at the scene, but the fire had obtained such headway that it was impossible to save anything to speak of.

A few chairs, a cook stove and a small amount of bedding was saved out of the dwelling part of the house, but nothing was saved out of the store except a box of shoes.

These were found outside the store and just under a window which was open.

It is the general supposition that the store was first plundered by thieves and then set on fire to help them make their escape.

The loss will fall very heavy on Mr. Smith, as he was only partly insured.

The lower part of the building belonged to W. H. Maloney, of Spokane, and the upper story belonged to the Odd Fellows.

The building was insured.

The Odd Fellows will probably build again, as they have a good membership there.

It was by the greatest effort on the part of the citizens that Call & Carter’s drug store was saved.

Every man in town turned out with two buckets and a perfect sheet of water was kept flying upon the drug store, which was badly scorched.

It was a good thing for the town that there was no wind blowing or it would have burned every business house in the place.

***

Haley Huges, a publisher of the late St. John Header and Oakesdale Observer, was in Colfax Saturday. He has sold his plant to L. O. Stearns, formerly owner of the Daily Empire at Moscow, who has removed it to Thornton, a growing little town on the Pleasant Valley division of the Union Pacific, where the publication of a new paper will shortly commence. It will probably be called The Tableland.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

March 9, 1917

The county commissioners were obliged to hold their Monday afternoon session in the court room to accommodate the large number of those who were present at the afternoon meeting. A number of them were present to register a protest against the appointment of a farm advisor. The official was not needed in the county, was the statement that was made by many of the farmers, while others maintained that the appointment would be a benefit to the farmers of the county.

Geo.

H. McCroskey told the commissioners that the farmers were opposed to the appointment of this official would mean an additional burden to the tax payers.

When the commercial bodies of the county want anything their wants are made known through the newspapers which carry double column headlines.

These commercial bodies in the past have taken the responsibility of suggesting that this county needs a farm advisor and they have insisted that they were asking for the appointment of this official because it was being requested by the farmers.

Mr. McCroskey told the board that a petition lay before signed by eighty-five farmers who reside in and around Pullman and these names were secured in a short time at Pullman last Saturday.

Every man but one to whom the petition had been presented had signed the request to the board asking them not to make the appointment, said Mr. McCroskey.

The farmers of this county need no farm advisor and one man would be helpless to attempt to do this work alone.

It would require at least fifty men to perform the work in this county was the opinion of the speaker.

***

The two republican commissioners who raised Deputy Sheriff Cole’s salary twenty-five dollars a month have been approached by other deputies who insist that they also are entitled to more pay. These men claim that their training and education cost them a considerable amount of time and money and that if a deputy sheriff is worth $125 a month to serve official papers, the clerks that are carrying on the official business of the county should also have an increase in salary.

One of the deputies from the engineer’s office was before the board Monday asking that his salary be increased to an amount equal to that given to the favorite deputy sheriff but the commissioners refused to listen to the appeal.

Many of the deputies that are employed in the different offices of the county are men and women of real ability, capable of any responsible position. These men and women claim that the republican commissioners showed rank favoritism in giving deputy sheriff Cole an increase in salary when they have refused to raise the salary of other deputies who have been in the employ of the county for many years. These men and women state that a deputy sheriff can be secured almost at any time and they insist that no one could be trained to assume some of the clerical duties at the court house without many years of training.

Every clerk in the court house resents the action of the commissioners in picking out one man and advancing his salary and at the same time refusing to recognize the merits of the deputies upon whose shoulders fall the greater part of the clerical work at the court house.

75 years ago

Colfax Gazette Commoner

March 6, 1942

“Are we in Colfax too complacent (regarding this present war) for our own good?”

That was the question posed at the Colfax chamber of commerce meeting Wednesday noon by William Noel, representative of the junior chamber of commerce, who led a discussion on the various problems brought to mind by the war.

Opinions varied from admission of complacency to complete denial of the charge. Mr. Noel began the forum with the supposition that this is America’s war. From 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria, until 1941, when they struck at Pearl Harbor, he said that the nations attacked by stronger neighbors resisted invasion because they hoped that the vast resources of America would eventually be thrown on their side.

The first phase of the problem asked for an opinion on the attitude of the American people toward this war. Otto Glaser: “We are complacent because we do not realize the full scope of the struggle. Perhaps when a few boys come back in coffins, all that will be changed. Attitude towards the war is an individual problem.”

On the same question L. L. Burgunder said, “The response to the auxiliary firemen’s training program is very gratifying. I know these men are serious in their attitude towards a threatened danger.” Said W. L. LaFollette, “I don’t believe we are complacent at all in Whitman County. We believe intensely in the rightness of our cause, and even before Pearl Harbor the U.S.O. drive went over the top in this city and county.”

H. E. Heffner, discussing the difference in reaction of people to this war, as compared with the last, said, “During the last war there was no thought that the United States would be invaded, but now, we know that it is possible, and the war has become a much more personal position. I believe people are more sensible in their thinking and acting now, because they are better informed, and there will not be the mob hysteria of 1917-18.”

“How many people of your acquaintance have thought seriously of the possibility of United States losing the war?” was the difficult question faced by Superior Judge M. E. Jesseph. “I don’t believe very many of my friends have thought seriously of this possibility,” he said, turning to an analysis of American strength. “I doubt that we have the national unity now that was present in the last war,” Judge Jesseph concluded.

Postmaster H. O. Thompson closed the discussion with a plea for personal sacrifices from those at home in the form of defense bond purchases, and he also suggested that we accept the judgment of military men in the event enemy aliens, removed from prohibited west coast zones, are quartered here. The program, first in a series to promote closer inter-club understanding, was arranged by F. B. Dill.

***

Acting in the capacity of a jury at a public hearing in the high school gymnasium Tuesday afternoon, members of the Whitman County school district reorganization committee listened for more than two hours to the opinions expressed by many persons whose districts are affected under the committee’s proposals for reorganizing the Colfax district.

Meetings with the Colfax school board during the week preceding for consideration of problems concerning certain districts have paved the way for what was relatively a quiet hearing, with protests limited chiefly against the principle embodied in the state’s district reorganization law, which allegedly was that of placing a small district at the mercy of a larger one that would have an unfair advantage in the forthcoming elections.

To the people of Onecho, the present Colfax board gave the assurance that their grade school would be maintained; to the Hubbard (No. 257) representatives, that their schoolhouse would remain the gathering place for community functions; and to Almota, that an effort would be made to solve a difficult transportation problem.

E. C. Huntley, chairman of the county committee, presided at the hearing. After his introduction by Eugene Mohr, chairman of the Colfax board, he explained that the state law originated through the state planning commission, was adopted by the legislature and that its application in Whitman County was based on the promise that all of the non-high school districts and five high school districts would be eliminated.

That no high school loss was involved in the Colfax reorganization plan explained somewhat the lack of verbal fireworks, for it has been at the hearings proposing the abolition of high schools that the most spirited protests have been launched by the districts affected.

A petition bearing 35 names was presented by Tom Danaher asking that all of the Hubbard district be put in the Colfax district. It had been proposed at the Steptoe hearing to give Steptoe the north half of Hubbard. Speaking in favor of Colfax, were John Brose, who said that a “house divided against itself can not stand”; John W. Baylor, Carl Lubben, Kenneth McCroskey, John Scholz and Eugene Johnson. It was to M. C. Brindle’s plea that S. E. Perkins, speaking for the Colfax board, answered that Hubbard could keep its schoolhouse as the center of community life, and the equipment in it.

50 years ago

Colfax Gazette

March 9, 1967

Colfax city councilmen took the first step in improving Fairview Street – the road to the new hospital site – Monday night when they passed a motion authorizing Esveldt and Saxon, Spokane engineers, to prepare plans and specifications for improving the road from Meadow Street up the hill to the city limits. In other business, the city opened a $32,250 bid for the purchase of surplus land and considered the fate of the Colfax high school grandstand.

The motion by F. L. “Slim” LaVerne came after Mike Kennedy of the Spokane firm reported the price for repairing the road would be approximately $29,212. The length of Fairview to be improved will run about 1350 feet and measure 28 feet curb to curb, Kennedy said.

Councilmen talked of getting the road improvement project completed before harvest operations. Kennedy told the council a start in the near future would probably put the completion date at about July 1.

One snag in the Fairview improvement project will be improving the sewer line which crosses the stretch of road at two points. Leakage in the sewer line has caused the council to consider improvement.

On suggestion of Councilman W. Rodney Russell, the council decided to assign city crews to the sewer improvement project.

Jones Truck and Implement offered the $32,250 bid on approximately 65,000 square feet of land located on the Walla Walla highway easy of the sewage disposal plant. The council held up any decision to accept or reject the lone bid.

25 years ago

Colfax Gazette

March 5, 1992

Colfax City Council members Monday night approved spending approximately $40,000 for the possible purchase of two used firetrucks. Both trucks are now part of the WSU Fire Department.

One truck is a 100-foot ladder truck which has been officially offered by the college fire departments. The second truck is a four-wheel-drive pumper truck which could be offered by the university this week or possibly in October.

The city approved the purchase of the trucks after learning the city’s fire rating, a factor in insurance costs, cold be increased unless moves are made to update the equipment.

Chief Jim Krouse said the offer to sell the trucks from WSU arrived quicker than the fire department had anticipated. He said the department has been on the lookout for replacement equipment.

The university’s 1962 American LaFrance ladder truck would return ladder capabilities to the Colfax department. The city last year sold its 1936 Seagraves ladder truck to a Spokane collector after state inspectors ordered the truck out of active service.

Councilwoman Susie Pittman said she was concerned about the city not having a ladder truck and having so many people living in high level buildings in the city.

Krouse noted the addition of Hill Ray, Whitman Plaza, Wheatland Arms, and Marcus Place have increased the number of residential units at the second and third-story levels.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

March 8, 2007

Giant yellow earth movers have begun excavating the new 13-acre James Toyota site in the Pullman-Moscow Corridor south of Highway 270.

James was granted a conditional use permit last month by the county’s Board of Adjustment, after the development was appealed by the City of Moscow.

The period to appeal the conditional use permit to court ended last Friday without any challengers.

Under the conditional use permit, the dealership can begin preparing the ground for the lot, but still needs to submit an approved septic sewer plan and lay out its plan to handle water runoff from washing cars before it can apply for building permits.

Among the conditions laid out by the Board of Adjustment, James must obtain an erosion control plan from a licensed engineer, and bring any lighting of the site to meet south Pullman-Moscow Corridor zoning requirements.

To date the development is the largest development to set up shop under the county’s corridor zoning codes.

***

At its first Relay for Life, the Town of Tekoa raised $1,200 for cancer research and programs. High school senior Stephanie Brandt was the chairperson for the event with junior Monica Jakes as co-chair.

Brandt and Hakes attended a leadership camp last summer called the SpeakOUT Summer Summit. The camp put on a mini-Relay that Brandt enjoyed. She was touched by the luminaria ceremony and the emotions while everyone was walking around the track talking.

“I wanted to bring that feeling of togetherness to Tekoa,” she said.

Brandt and Jakes made the mini-Relay their FCCLA project with Connie Marsch as advisor. Brandt said they wanted to show the community what the Relay was and how it helped.

“It was really great,” Brandt said. They went into it expecting to raise $250. When all was said and done, they had raised $1200 that will go toward the Colfax Relay for Life July 13 and 14.