Pomeroy Pioneer Portraits

Ten Years Ago

January 19, 2011

Members of the Washington State Fairs Association, including the Garfield County Fair board, are urging voters to contact legislators to stop a proposed budget cut from Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire that would cut the state Fair Fund from $4 million to $1 million for the 2011-13 budget, and take $1.2 million out of the current balance in the Fair Fund.

Taking weight class wrestling championships at the Royal Rumble Tournament in Royal City were Tory Knebel, Wyatt Jenkins and Austin Reisdorph.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

January 24, 1996

Garfield County went under its first real blanket of snow this year when a storm hit early Friday morning. The white stuff hung around over the weekend and snow showers continued into the first of the week.

Garfield County Memorial Hospital has been approved by the State of Washington as a Level V designated trauma hospital. Pomeroy’s hospital is a Level V because it does not offer obstetrics, surgery or a broad range of specialists.

Fifty Years Ago

January 21, 1971

Governor Dan Evans declared Garfield County a disaster area and said he would seek about $500,000 in federal aid to help the county pay for clean-up and repairs after the recent flood. In his declaration, Evans pegged the damage at about $1 million. Early estimates had been a low $100,000, to “cover a million.”

Twenty young men, aged 17 to 21 years old, from the Cottonwood, Idaho, Civilian Conservation Center, arrived Wednesday noon to assist in cleaning up damage done in the city of Pomeroy during the recent flood.

Seventy-Five Years Ago

January 17, 1946

Garfield County is looking forward with interest to the big show in the high school gymnasium Monday evening featuring the great Jesse Owens in person with his crack Kansas City Stars basketball team against the Pomeroy Jaycees. The peerless Jesse Owens is scheduled to speak over the public address system in the gym on his experiences in the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin.

The Revere Hotel, operated for ten years by Mr. and Mrs. Garry Jewett and owned by them for the past 20 years, was sold yesterday to Richard Keatts at a reported consideration of $42,000. The deal involving Main street business property is the largest made here in many years. The Revere, a three-story brick structure, the largest single business block in Pomeroy, contains 12 modern apartments, and 28 rooms. Also located in the building is the East Washingtonian’s office and a storeroom until recently occupied by the Garfield County rationing board.

The county road crew opened up three-quarters of a mile of snow-blocked highway, Scoggin schoolhouse to the Ortie Scoggin farm, with a snow plow attached to the county patrol. The work, however, was not accomplished until the road crew employed a team hitched to a walking plow, loosening the snow drifted in places to the depth of two feet.

The Pomeroy Pirates defeated the Lewiston Bengals there by a score of 34 to 32. Regardless of what the Tribune reporter had to say about the game, it was still good enough for the large delegation that accompanied the Pirates across the “hump” to thoroughly enjoy it.

One Hundred Years Ago

January 22, 1921

Samuel Gibson was buried under a pile of sacked grain, narrowly escaping death, and serious damage was done to eleven or twelve thousand sacks of wheat, as a result of the collapse of the platform at the north side of the Cluster warehouse. Four men had been at work in the aisle a few minutes before the accident occurred and all probably would have lost their lives if it had happened a little earlier.

School correspondence: The first semester ended last Friday, Jan. 14. It also “ended” some of our hopes. There were quite a number of failures due to a united effort on the part of the teachers to raise the standard of scholarship. Since it is in a good cause, we ought to be willing to suffer.

One Hundred Twenty-Five Years Ago

January 18, 1896

Sleighing parties are now the order of the day and everybody seems to be in the whirl. The young people seem to be trying to get all the fun out of the snow that is possible.

Farmers sincerely hope that the little ground squirrels which came out before the recent cold wave struck us, will starve out before spring. We believe a long cold spell would thin them out wonderfully.

Bro. Sproat says the Lord will never prosper the man who stole his blanket from Lute Wade’s blacksmith shop.

Though teachers are numerous that would teach our Mayview school of twenty scholars for 35 to 45 dollars per month, school officers have engaged a teacher for the spring term at $60. They have also bought a 65-dollar chart with which to ornament our schoolroom, for that’s all it’s fit for. It remains to be seen whether the people will, at the next election, approve of such willful extravagance.

High winds last Tuesday blew over quite a number of straw stacks on stock and killed several head.