Pioneer Portraits - July 7, 2016

Ten Years Ago

July 13, 2006

Located on Smith Hollow road, the Smith Hollow one-room school house, established in 1910 has been recently gifted by Van and Debra Seney of Waitsburg to the Blue Mountain Heritage Society.

Touchet Valley Leadership Council and Waitsburg’s 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) teamed up to paint Unity Wall tiles recently, and another painting session will be held on Wednesday, July 19, at 1 p.m. in the Elementary Multi-purpose room. Over 50 participants designed and hand painted 4” x 4” ceramic tiles for use in one of the three Unity Walls that will be placed in Waitsburg, Prescott, and Dayton. Ages ranged from 3 years old to adult according to CCLC site coordinator Kathy Carpenter.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

July 11, 1991

Waitsburg City Council, meeting July 3, approved a handicapped parking space in front of the Plaza Building, and signed an emergency medical agreement with Waitsburg Ambulance Service to provide service for the city. Mayor Roy Leid said he had been approached about a handicapped space in town, and felt the Plaza site was the most centrally located.

Waitsburg’s Boy Scout Troop No. 336 has been started under the leadership of Tom Longo as Scoutmaster, Gale Gillum as assistant.

Word from the Touchet Valley Grain Growers this week indicated that harvest in this area will start about ten days later than it did in 1990. J. E. McCaw of TVGG said that the cooler wet weather is in part responsible. The also pointed out that many farmers planted spots that were damaged by the freeze, so there will be two different maturity levels of the grain.

FiftyYears Ago

July 28, 1966

Local musician on the Green Giant’s steam powered whistle informed the world at 11:40 p.m. on Monday night that the 1966 pack was finis. We listened closely and would swear we could pick out the tune ‘ . . . from the Valley of the Jolly (ho, ho, ho) Green Giant.’

The new 7th street bridge has provided many, many hours of entertainment not only for the sidewalk superintendents like our good friend Frank Zuger, but for the small fry of the town as well. Those residents in the vicinity of the new bridge have received several free hours of baby-sitting with wholesome activities for kids of most ages. Just after Coppei Creek was diverted to go under the new bridge, some of the more conservation-minded young people were seen with a bucket brigade transferring the crawdad population from the old channel to the new one.

Seventy-Five Years Ago

July 25, 1941

Miss Margaret Mills became the bride of Mr. Harry Baird in services Wednesday evening at the Christian Church.

The R. E. A. service line through the Spring Valley district and the farmers to be served were busily engaged in “hooking up” the electric juice.

Mr. and Mrs. N. B. Atkinson observed their 60th wedding anniversary on Saturday July 19.

Capt. and Mrs. Clifford Light and daughter Janet Sue of The Dalles spent Sunday here.

They were on the boat “Mary Gail,” that burned Saturday at the plant, near Wallula. Captain Light received a few burns, not serious but all their clothing and personal belongings were destroyed.

One Hundred Years Ago

July 28, 1916

The Dayton Band will give another of their successful dances at Mountain Home Park, on the Touchet, eight miles above Dayton, on Saturday night of this week.

Mr. and Mrs. G. L. Grigsby and little song while on their way from Waitsburg to Pomeroy last Saturday, stripped a gear of the car while climbing the Marengo hill.

Ad Clark is limping around this week as a result of falling out of the hay mow onto the manger a few days ago. He says the falling didn’t hurt so badly as the terribly hard alighting.

John Meinburg and son Harold, Taylor Rodgers and B. O. Porter returned from Spokane Sunday where they went by auto to register for the hand drawing.

One Hundred Twenty Five Years Ago

July 31, 1891

Guy Wheeler, who has been camping with Mrs. J. H. Morrow and family for the past two weeks, met with some very bad luck on Saturday. He fell down the mountainside and was choked to death.

A, Mikkelsen requests us to state that if the parties who entered his orchard last Sunday and carried off his plums ever do the like again, he will have them arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. A word to the wise is sufficient and we advise the boys to keep out of friend Mikkelsen’s orchard.

Some women marry, and some prefer to keep their liberty; and some do both.