Good Old Days: January 16, 2020

 

January 16, 2020



100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

Jan. 16, 1920

The officers of the Farmers National Bank closed a deal for the purchase of the Barrell and Mohney building this week at a cost of about $50,000. In order to secure the building, it was necessary to purchase the stock of hardware which was taken at invoice prices.

The hardware stock has been sold by the officers of the bank to the Hanna Investment Company at invoice prices. The stock is to be moved to the Codd building which has been leased for a term of years by the company.

The officers of the Farmers National Bank state that plans for remodeling the Barrell and Mohney building will be started as soon as the present stock of goods are removed. It is the intention of the bank officers to not only remodel the lower floor of the building but to re-arrange the office rooms upstairs.

An architect has been employed to submit plans for the new bank building and as soon as the plans are selected, the contract for the work will be let. It is thought that it may be possible to move the bank into its new quarters by the first of June.

***

Members of the commercial club, the school teachers and the citizens of the city are to make a thorough canvas this year to see that no one is missed by the census enumerators. Colfax has only two census enumerators and they have been working early and late to secure a full and complete list of the names of every resident in the city.

G. W. LaRue and Mrs. Moore are the appointed enumerators of this city and they have been handicapped in their work by finding many of the people not at home when making the canvas. The work must be performed in fourteen days which gives little time for the enumerators to make three or four calls at the different homes in order to secure the census reports. Both of the workers are anxious to make a complete and accurate enumeration and they will be assisted in this work by the people of the city.

Wednesday noon, the members of the commercial club decided to employ a man for the rest of the week to make a canvas of the names of those who had been missed by the government enumerators.

Those who have been missed by the enumerators are requested to call up S. E. Perkins, who will take the names and addresses of the parties who have been missed by the enumerators and in this way an accurate and correct count of the population of the city will be secured.

***

The city of Endicott has a number of cases of scarlet fever and to avoid the spread of the disease, the members of the city council met at the call of the mayor Tuesday and adopted a rule that no children under 18 years of age should visit any of the stores in the town.

The city marshall was instructed to keep the children off the streets and he has been busy since Tuesday trying to keep them off. In the mean time, the schools have been running every day and the children have been mingling together at every place except stores.

A number of the Endicott people were in the city this week and they state that the order of closing the stores to the children in an attempt to stamp out the disease, while the children are allowed to congregate at every other place in town, is a plan formulated by the mayor and members of the city council.

There are only a few cases of the disease reported at Endicott and neither the school authorities or the teachers have thought it necessary to to close the schools. The members of the city council acted without delay and their order to the store keepers to exclude all children under 17 years of age carried by a unanimous vote. The city marshall has been earning salary this week, trying to break up groups of children playing on vacant lots and also trying to keep them off the streets.

75 years ago

The Colfax Gazette-Commoner

Jan. 19, 1945

Blue ribbons were awarded in Spokane Saturday to the eight county 4-H club members who were winners last year in the Sears Foundation gardening and food preservation contest. Presentation of the prizes was made at a banquet at the Davenport hotel, attended by the winning contestants, their club leaders and representatives of the county extension service.

Winners in the garden project were Robert Butler, Russell Zakarison, Mike Murray, Robert Koppel and Gordon Prouty, all of Pullman. Awards in the food preservation contest went to Gladys Aeschliman, Colfax; Dean Murray and Eleanor Prouty, Pullman. The Sears Foundation has sponsored the contests and banquet for the past three years.

***

O. C. Glaser announced Tuesday the sale of his jewelry stock, fixtures and equipment to Melvin Kincaid and Ivor Wilson who recently formed a partnership when Mr. Kincaid purchased an interest in the Wilson jewelry store.

The two stocks will be combined when the present location of Kincaid & Wilson is vacated in the near future.

Mr. Glaser has been in the jewelry business here 38 years. When he came to Colfax in August, 1906, he bought a half interest in a store from George H. Shirkey who had come here in November, 1905, to buy the store of Tom Lommasson.

The partnership of Shirkey & Glaser continued until January 1912, when Mr. Glaser purchased Mr. Shirkey’s interest. Since then he has conducted the business alone.

Mr. Glaser has retained the optical department of his store, planning to open an office in another location in Colfax later.

50 years ago

The Colfax Gazette

Jan. 15, 1970

Heavy rains on frozen ground in the western part of the county put water and mud across roads and led to movement of soil off farmland this week. Rainfall at the Colfax station measured 1.07 inches Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.

I. Rusty Whitmore, county maintenance engineer, said the rain had caused troubles in several places with the unpaved sections of the Penawawa road as a candidate for closure.

Some of the surface material on the Penawawa road had been removed in preparation for new surfacing, Whitmore reported. The downpour of the last two days hit the freshly-worked surface, creating a mud surface which is nearly impassable.

Whitmore said load limits could be posted on county roads if conditions continue. He asked farmers to refrain from hauling heavy loads until the roads firm up. Limits are usually posted later in the season.

***

State Rep. Robert Goldsworthy of Rosalia has introduced a bill in the special session of the legislature providing that every high school in the state with less than 250 enrollment be classified as “emote and necessary.”

His bill, along with several others introduced both in the house and the senate, are aimed at ending the confusion resulting last fall when the state board of education was called upon to reduce the amount of state funds available to some smaller schools by removing them from the list of “emote and necessary.” Four Whitman County high schools, Tekoa, Palouse, Endicott and Oakesdale, were removed from the list.

Rep. Goldsworthy said some of the bills aimed at ending the confusion over the “emote and necessary” designation would reopen the appropriation bill adopted at last spring’s special legislative session. “I am hopeful that I can get my bill approved instead of bills that would take the route of reopening the budget, since almost anything could happen if we try to reopen the budget,” he said.

25 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

Jan. 19, 1995

The new Arby’s Restaurant arrived in Colfax Monday on a string of trucks dispatched from a plant in Minnesota. Construction crews this week are placing the building on the prepared foundation and the exterior structure should be up by the end of the week.

This is believed to be the first time that a commercial prefabricated building has been installed in Colfax.

Ed James, of James Associates in Spokane, said the pre-fab structure is an option new owners can make when they decided to operate a franchise restaurant like an Arby’s.

“A lot of it has to do with cost, and I believe for down there, the cost is less,” James said.

James’ firm was in charge of taking the restaurant’s design and making sure that it met local and state codes. He and the contractors, Associated Construction, Inc., are charged with making sure the foundation preparations fit the pre-fab building when it arrives on the site.

***

A plant for treating poles and possible dimension lumber is expected to arrive in LaCrosse this month. The plant, which involves a process for pressure-treating wood with CCA chemical, last week led to lengthy city hall sessions.

The plant could employ as many as 15 people if the pressure-treating service expands into treatment of dimension lumbar, Bob Westfall, operator of the plant, said.

Town council members, who note LaCrosse lacks a zoning ordinance, last week had a lengthy discussion on the plant. The council has approved a building permit for a concrete slab which will be part of the plant, and probably lacks ordinances to stop the project.

***

Colfax has gained approximately $400,000 in the projected cost figures for the Main Street project, Myrt Webb, city administrator told the city council Tuesday night. The gain came with a shift of funds to the state’s portion of the project.

State estimates on the job now include $400,000 for curbing which will be paid by the Department of Transportation. The $400,000 had been figured on the city’s share of the project.

Webb told the council the shift in curbing expenses brings the city’s part of the funding package down to about $1.4 million.

The change probably means that the city will have to land two grants instead of three to complete the local share of the funding package, Webb said.

The city will ask voters March 14 to approve a bonding levy of up to $325,000 for matching funds on the grants. Webb plans to submit grants to the state’s Transportation Improvement Board and the federal ISTEA program for the funds. He said the change in curbing expenses means he will probably seek one less ISTEA grant.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

Jan. 21, 2010

Belmont will indeed be the home of 4,500 tons of liquid chlorine.

After receiving approval from several federal agencies, Canexus of Vancouver, British Columbia, is going ahead with its plans to park 50 railroad tanker cars filled with liquid chlorine on the siding track at Belmont.

The Washington and Idaho Railway will store the cars for Canexus as a security precaution during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Early next month, a fence will be built around the future site of the cars at Belmont.

Tank cars built to store the chlorine have been parked on sidings along the line. The cars will be pulled to Vancouver, loaded with the chlorine and brought back to Belmont, likely by Feb. 4.

***

County commissioners made a second, higher offer of $100,000 to purchase the Pullman health department office Tuesday.

Their counter offer came after a $115,000 offer made by the office owner, Pullman Regional Hospital Foundation, from whom the county has leased the office.

The foundation board told commissioners in the fall they wanted out of the landlord business, leaving the county with the choice of buying the space or moving the office elsewhere. The lease ends July 31.

County commissioners last month made an initial offer of $94,000.

The health department currently leases the building for $1,200 per month. The county pays $28,085 per year in lease and utility costs on the building.

 

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