Looking Back on Jan. 11-12

A rare find at a second-hand shop in Prineville landed in the Discovery Center & Museum’s library holdings, thanks to brothers Ted and Jim Comini. The book, from 1882, titled “The Charter of Dalles City,” outlines city ordinances—from assessing and collecting taxes to preventing and punishing those who set up houses  or rooms for opium smoking or chewing.

While stray cats abound in some parts of town, officials say there’s little they can do about it. Wasco County Animal Control Officer Brad Heinege said stray cats have become a problem in parts of the county and he knows of households with 20 or more cats.

A possible water rate hike would be an easier sell if customers could be told what the water system’s large “savings account” is for. That was the argument of Mayor Robb Van Cleave made at Monday’s The Dalles City Council meeting, where water rates were again on the agenda.

 Work sessions this Thursday and next are targeted toward answering The Dalles Middle School site questions that are still preventing the district’s long-range planning task force from making a site recommendation.

January 17, Martin Luther King Day, may be a postal holiday, but the local post office will be busy, busy, busy. The Dalles Post Office will take advantage of the holiday to move its operations across the street to the new post office, which will open to the public at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 18.

40 years ago — 1980

Continued snow with warmer temperatures, up to 40, was forecast for The Dalles through Saturday. Heavy snow resumed here about 11:15 a.m. with a new front moving up the Columbia Gorge, which is still closed to traffic.

Two local boys were injured in separate sledding accidents in The Dalles Thursday, and one of them is still in the intensive care unit at the hospital.

With an eye on mounting expenses and projected declining enrollment, four of the five District 12 school board members turned down requests for a part-time athletic trainer and an elementary media specialist Thursday night.

Human nature being what it is, most people caught in a difficult situation tend to make the best of things and sometimes even find enjoyable aspects. Such has been the case with people stranded in the area because of the weather-forced closure of I80N Tuesday.

Despite a forecast for 12 inches of snow in the Cascadces, residents in the Gorge and elsewhere Friday were taking things good-naturedly. Reports from the heaviest snowfall zones brought no drastic cases of hardship, and refugees were being moved out of Cascade Locks Friday, both eastward and westward.

60 years ago — 1960

The Dalles soon will have a city band to play in parade and at other public functions, if present plans are carried through to completion. First meeting for organization of the band will be held tomorrow evening from 7:30 to 9 in the band room at The Dalles High School.

WASCO—Flames which broke out late this forenoon destroyed a brooder house containing 400 three-day-old chickens at the Tad McCoy place occupied by the Bill Long family west of here. The fire is believed to have started from a short in the electric brooder system.

A year-end report prepared in The Dalles City engineer’s office reveals a total of 199 building permits issued in The Dalles during 1959, which  accounted for $980,123 worth of construction.

Wasco County homemakers are reminded by Betty Sedgwick, Wasco County extension agent, that the Dressmaking I preliminary meetings are being held throughout the county this week.

Committees appointed last week by Dalles City and The Dalles Chamber of Commerce to study parking and traffic conditions in the city have been consolidated into one committee.

Paul Kortge, Wasco County rancher, was elected president of the Port of The Dalles Commission last night, succeeding Edward T. Chambers. Chambers handed over the gavel to Dr. Homer Webb, commissioner, during last night’s reorganization meeting of the commission, then took the floor to nominate Kortge.

The start of extensive park development in the area by the U.S. Corps of Engineers was cited by W. S. Nelson, manager of The Dalles Chamber of Commerce, in a report yesterday to the Chamber board of directors on completion of an agreement for the improvement of Celilo Park. Nelson said the engineers will develop the park facilities under an agreement with Wasco County to administer the park.

Sale of timber in Dalles City’s watershed area was postponed indefinitely today as the result of heavy snowfalls. City Manager Robert Laursen said this morning an accumulation of some 16 inches of snow in the watershed had made it impossible to reach the stands scheduled for cutting.

The 11th 78,000-kilowatt generator at The Dalles dam is now turning for a mechanical check and is expected to go on the line within the next week.

80 years ago — 1940

Following the basketball game Friday night, the High School Parent-Teachers’ association will sponsor another in the series of student dances from 9 to 12 o’clock at the civic auditorium. Special guests for the dance, which is open only to students of the senior and junior high schools, will be the members of the Baker basketball squad.

RUFUS—A benefit card party was held at the Rufus grange hall Saturday evening. Five hundred was the diversion of the evening. Mrs. Walter Madler and Atlee Wilson held high scores.

The Lewis and Clark monument, which has traveled a bumpier road than the original expedition, yesterday hobbled over another obstacle in its stormy career when the city council passed a resolution authorizing H. R. Landfare, resident WPA engineer, to resume operations on the monument work January 21.

An ”unending fight” to rectify poor housing conditions at Celilo was promised today by John Whiz, who said he and Chief Tommy Thompson would like to urge this improvement at the federal capital. Whiz, who said Indians at Celilo now were behind the idea of improving the Indian dwellings and of furnishing proper sewage and sanitary facilities, has contacted the local Chamber of Commerce and the Lions club. Whiz said he would give his message to the Lions club next Tuesday.

Wasco County relief expenditures showed a substantial drop in December, under figures for the corresponding period a year ago, Administrator Carl Sandoz’ report to the county public welfare commission Wednesday revealed. The welfare office spent $2,079.90 on 126 cases last month, as compared with $2,949.30 in December 1938, when 239 cases were given relief assistance.

LONDON (UP)—Nazi airplanes in perhaps the widest aerial activity of the war roamed along the eastern coast of England and Scotland today, attacked small vessels and dodged a vigorous counterattack by the royal air force and anti-aircraft batteries.

BERLIN (UP)—Severe cold caused increased suffering in Germany today because of the strict rationing of coal. Supplies of coal were dwindling, because canal boats were icebound.

100 years ago — 1920

In observance of the funeral of Mrs. Anna Marshall Williams, pioneer resident of The Dalles, who died at her home in Seattle yesterday, Mayor Stadelman has proclaimed from 1:30 until 3:30 o’clock tomorrow afternoon a holiday. Mrs. Williams came to The Dalles in 1861 and was the founder of some of the city’s most prominent business institutions. She was born in London, England, in 1840. When six years of age, she came to America. She was nearly 80 years old at the time of her death.

Education is the means by which Bolshevism and ultra-radicalism can be stamped from the United States, was the opinion of General John J. Pershing, who yesterday morning spoke for 15 minutes to a crowd of Dalles citizens gathered at the local depot to pay tribute to the great American leader who not many months past was hurling his mighty legions, thousands strong, into the vortex of the most stupendous military cataclysm in history.

The Dalles High School basketball teams scored a double victory Saturday over the Wasco high boys, and girls’ squads in the gymnasium at the local high school and The Dalles gents proved entirely too much for the visitors and the final count saw a total score of 60 amassed for the locals against 11 for Wasco.

High School students henceforward are to be kept out of the pool halls of the city. This is not in its essence a morality drive. Boys no doubt could play pool under proper circumstances and still be clean and upright.