Looking Back on January 20, 2019

Harmon identified it as a photograph of “The Dip,” a swimming place at the mouth of Mill Creek just west of Union Street.

Gary Conley said that although it was before his time, “I heard a lot about The Dip. A lot of people talked about swimming down there.”

Marilyn Urness said that her mom told her that in the 1920s, there was a swimming hold called The Dip where Mill Creek met the Columbia River, prior to the dams being built. Robert Murray, the football coach, was one of the lifeguards, she said.

Cee Cee Anderson also recognized “The Dip,” as a place where “everybody in The Dalles went swimming before the Natitorium was built [at Thompson Park]. I remember my father talking about swimming there when I was a kid.”

Mary Batty added that there was another swimming hole on Mill Creek where the swimming pool is now, that was simply called the Mill Creek swimming hole.

The Troutdale Historical Society will present “Finding the Wire Trail,” a program featuring two local historians, Dave Wand and Larry McGinnis, who searched for evidence of a Native American trail that was once a route for the first telegraph wire from Troutdale to The Dalles, at 2 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 20.

Wand, an electronic engineer, grew up in the Pleasant View area. He spent his entire career in communications as a cell phone tower consultant, locating, building, and maintaining towers. Larry McGinnis hails from Corbett-Troutdale with credentials in surveying. The two have been working for several years to find traces of the original Native American trail that ascended from the Sandy River. Many Pleasant View school residents used the Wire Trail to commute to work at the slaughter house in Troutdale.

The notes of Captain John Harlow, Troutdale’s founder, indicate that he delivered The Oregonian newspaper over the Wire Trail.

The program will be held in Glenn Otto Park, 1102 E. Historic Columbia River Highway, and is free.

20 years ago – 1999

Four water rate proposals will be considered by The Dalles City Council in coming weeks.

The effort to create a regional council for the arts and culture comes to The Dalles on Saturday, Jan. 30.

The Brewery Grade intersection has been a bottleneck for years, an ODOT official agreed last week. Unfortunately, in the “foreseeable future,” state funds for an upgrade of that intersection on state-owned Highway 30 aren’t available, Sam Wilkins told The Dalles City Council last Monday.

Trees across power lines at Mt. Adams Orchards darkened about 1,100 homes from Northwestern Lake to Torut Lake for more than 10 hours Monday (Jan. 18), according to Klickitat PUD system engineer Jim Smith.

If the governor were there, it would have been a cabinet meeting. As it was, county government heads got a rare chance to speak directly with state agency leaders about the future of four counties along the lower John Day River.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a second day before Senate jurors, White House lawyers are challenging contentions by House prosecutors that President Clinton lied to a federal grand jury and obstructed justice.

40 years ago – 1979

The Dalles Civic Auditorium and the Carnegie Library building have been placed on the National Registry of Historic Places bringing to five the number of sites here on the registry. Work is progressing to place seven to nine more sites on the registry.

Members of the Search and Rescue CB Radio Club who provide travelers coffee at Memaloose during holidays, will gather tonight at 7 in the Civic Auditorium to seat new officers and plan some of the year’s work. The club expressed its appreciation to citizens and merchants who have assisted in furnishing coffee for Memorial Day, July 4 and Labor Day each year.

Snow may still be on the ground, but baseball makes its return next month with clinics at Portland state University and Lewis & Clark College.

The 1979 fee for grazing livestock on Bureau of Land Management property will be $1.89 per animal unit month (AUM), according to regulations being published in the Federal Register. This year’s price is the first increase in the fee since 1976.

SALEM, Ore. (UPI) — The question of how to fund state schools revolves around a simple but painful economic reality — costs are up, taxpayers are in a tightfisted mood, and resolving the matter means either cutting those costs or boosting taxes.

60 years ago – 1959

Dalles City Council last night reaffirmed its intention not to accept additional applications for water service to properties outside the city limits.

The President’s budget calls for $30,000,000 to be spent in The Dalles area during the coming fiscal year. These expenditures will be a boon to the economy of the area during the next 12 months. Of the amount, $20,000,000 will be spent on John Day Dam and an additional $7,000,000 on The Dalles Dam.

The Oregon Wheat Commission will join The Dalles Camera Club in sponsoring an international photographic slide exhibit here March 7 and 8.

A scheduled tag team match at The Dalles Armory arena is going to have to wait until Big George Coleman settles a score with Al Kashey of Minnesota, Matchmaker Harry Elliott said this morning.

The Dalles Jaycees today named committees to seek the outstanding young man in The Dalles, the outstanding young farmer in Wasco County and the outstanding Jaycee in the local organization.

Thomas Scott, 51, of The Dalles died of a heart attack in Portland Saturday.

80 years ago – 1939

W. Elwood Ginn, foreman of the city street department, today was riding the horns of a dliemma. Ginn is confronted with the ticklish problem of satisfying the desire of downtown merchants for cleanliness of city streets, and pacifying motorists who dislike slippery streets. For a week, on Ginn's orders, the downtown city streets have been washed every night. However, the freeze this morning complicated matters by icing the streets' surface. Cars and individuals skidded indiscriminately.

Columbia gorge basketball will crackle like grease on a frying pan tonight when The Dalles high school Indians, carrying with them a record of nine victories in twelve games, invade the bailiwick of the Hood River Blue Dragons for a renewal of the annual hard-court rivalry between the two aggregations.

The 1938 Christmas seal sale today totaled $945.53, it was announced by Mary Frances Gilbert, treasurer of the Wasco County Public Health association.

STATE PENITENTIARY, Salem, Jan. 20. (UP)—Oregon's first lethal gas execution today snuffed out the life of Leroy Hershel McCarthy, 26-year-old killer, whose brief criminal career matched perfectly the moral that “crime does not pay.” The slight, dark youth paid with his life for the murder of a Portland gas station operator in a $26 holdup a year and a half ago.

100 years ago – 1919

Definite control of the influenza epidemic in this city, following the rigid quarantine, and ban is indicated in the report of new cases made this morning. Only four new cases of the disease were reported Saturday, with no deaths. Yesterday three new cases were reported and one death. This number is a decided reduction from last week when from 10 to 20 new cases were reported daily.

Mrs. Alexander Thompson of this city, representative from Wasco and Hood River counties, will be sponsor of a bill to create a court of domestic relations in Multnomah county. The bill, which she expects to introduce this week, is attracting considerable comment.

F. S. Gunning, former county judge, appeared before Judge J. T. Adkison and Commissioner Clausen of the present court this morning and rendered an accounting for all sums spent from the $271,000 bond issue.

SEATTLE, Jan. 20.—Madame Catheringe Breshovskay, “little grandmother of the Russian revolution,” is resting in Seattle today, following her arrival here yesterday aboard the Nippon Yusen Kaisha liner Kamo Maru with more than 70 refugees from the bolsheviki reign. The bolsheviki constitute a “destructive” force, in Madame Brehovskaya's opinion. “The socialists do not approve the bolsheviki,” she declared. “The socialists are constructors. The bolsheviki tear down.”

BERLIN, Jan. 18.—(Delayed.)—Chancellor Ebert told the United Press today that Germany will do everything to comply with peace conditions based on President Wilson's 14 points, but that if the allies make further demands he will not take the responsibility of signing the peace terms. He declared the Spartacans lost their revolt and that no further serious outbreaks will occur if the people are fed. If they are not fed, he said, we must be ready for anything.