Good Old Days: Nov. 2, 2017

125 years ago

The Commoner

November 4, 1892

A new bank, to be known as the Tekoa State bank, has been established at Tekoa, with H.L. Moody as president and O.D. Moody as cashier. The capital stock is $40,000, divided into 400 shares.

The majority is held by farmers and merchants of Tekoa and vicinity. The officers of the new bank are well known citizens of this and Spokane counties who have succeeded in everything they undertook. They are very sanguine of the success of the new enterprise. There is a rich farming country around Tekoa, and a good pay roll at the railroad shops. Besides that the reservation is near by, and a good deal of the money paid the Indians has begun to find its way back into circulation.

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Clyde’s sawmill and sash and door factory was burned at 4 o’clock yesterday morning. The mill will be rebuild at once. Active work of the fire department saved the surrounding buildings. The fire is supposed to have been incendiary.

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F.W. Gaines announced that he was going to be closing his Colfax or Palouse stores and everything in both stores will be sold at greatly reduced prices, until prices and stocks are sufficiently reduced to combine the two stores.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

November 2, 1917

The first Chautauqua to be held in Thornton will be held in November on the 8, 9, and 10th. A number of business men have been named on different committees to sell season tickets for this event.

The program for the three day Chautauqua was planned with the idea to entertain the people and will be an educational treat as well.

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Mayor W.E. Weinberg returned home Monday from a two month visit with relatives at his old home in Michigan. While coming home on the train the second night out from Chicago, Mr. Weinberg’s right leg became paralyzed. Mr. Weinberg said that he was in the smoking department of the sleeper when the stroke came and that he was taken back by the porter. The next morning the conductor was called in by Mr. Weinberg who instructed him to notify Mrs. Weinberg to meet him at Spokane. Mrs. Weinberg met the mayor at Spokane Monday morning and accompanied him home. Mayor Weinberg has greatly improved since reaching home .

The mayor was pleased with his visit and stated that he had enjoyed a splendid time.

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The farmers and mill men of Tekoa have formulated plans for one of the largest grain elevators in the entire county. For more than a generation the farmers of the county surrounding Tekoa have been delivering their grain sacked at the warehouse. The farmers of Tekoa state that an elevator has been needed in that city for the last four or five years. Tekoa is one of the largest wheat shipping points in the county and an elevator at that point will be untold value to the farmers residing in that locality.

75 years ago

The Colfax Gazette-Commoner

October 30, 1942

John Fred Laderer,43, arrested by sheriff’s deputies here Saturday for alleged failure to report for induction into the army through the selective service, was turned over later in the day to United States Marshal Wayne Bezona, Spokane. Laderer told sheriff’s deputies and county draft board officials that he was opposed to war as a matter of principle but not because of religious scruples.

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Navy Day, Tuesday was made more realistic in Colfax with the appearance of the U.S. Navy recruiting cruiser which was stationed most of the day on Spring Street. The cruiser is on a tour of the state.

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His body drooped over the table at which he was sitting, Ernest Geppert, 74, recluse of the Hooper community, was found Friday afternoon in the shack in which he lived 25 years, by Ira Daniel, a neighbor. Death was believed to have occurred from natural causes about five days before. Graveside services were conducted Monday afternoon in Colfax cemetery by the Rev. C.M. Hereford.

50 years ago

The Colfax Gazette

November 2, 1967

A proposed fourth Colfax traffic light at the Main and Stevens street intersection, has been given the red light by the highway department, according to a letter presented at the city council meeting Oct. 16 by Councilman Lyle Aiken, street and water chairman. Aiken said traffic at the intersection, which has the Colfax post office and Whitman Hotel on opposite corners, fails to meet any of the highways department’s six standards for a traffic light.

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Six professional actors sponsored by the Spokane Civic Theater will hold special workshops in classrooms at Garfield, Endicott and Rosalia, under financing from the Title III federal program, according to M.J. McCullough, county superintendent of schools.

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Plans are nearing completion for a countywide measles clinic Nov. 19 at which all children who have not had the measles or who have not been previously vaccinated can be immunized without charge. The Whitman County Medical Society is cooperation with the state public health service in working out plans for a clinic to be held at Colfax elementary school from 2 to 4pm and during the same hours in the Pullman high school. Doctors will volunteer their time in administrating the vaccine.

The clinics will be held only in Colfax and Pullman, with children from all parts of the county urged to be immunized at either clinic.

25 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

November 5, 1992

A play and a school dance were some of the happenings that were part of the Halloween festivities at school last week. The fifth and sixth grade students under the guidance of their teacher Margaret Kernkamp presented two plays. Mrs. Kernkamp’s students were also treated to banana splits made with homemade ice cream provided by room mothers. A junior high dance in the old gym was Friday night.

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Commissioner Nora Mae Keifer of Pullman was appointed to the Surface Transportation Program Advisory Committee by the state transportation secretary for a one year term.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

November 1, 2007

The two-plus miles of dead end railroad track east of Colfax have become part of the same parked rail car storage routine which has irked residents on the east side of Whitman County. The rail line segment became isolated after the fire in August of 2006 took out the trestle over the South Palouse River and cut the rail link between Colfax and Pullman. Railroad operators last year angered residents on the east side of the county when they backed idle freight cars, most of them vehicle carriers, on the segment of track which runs from Pullman through Albion and Parvin to the dead end.

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An 18-month contract deadlock between the Colfax school district and its support employees took on a new aspect last week when school board members approved the hiring of a negotiator to meet with the employees’ bargaining team.