From the Files

125 Years Ago

Adams County News

July 27, 1898

Local and Personal

Conrad Kissler took his thresher engine out to Mr. Schoonover's Monday where he commenced threshing yesterday.

J.E. Goodenough of Hatton unloaded his new steam thresher and engine Monday. He will begin work today on L.L Sutton's place. John has the largest machine in the county to date being 16-inch cylinder and 20-horsepower engine.

Last Saturday evening about six o'clock while three freight trains were in the yards here switching, five cars loaded with steel became uncoupled and were pushed out onto the main line and started west. No attempt it seems was made to catch them and they were soon going at a 40-mile rate down the grade.

It is reported that when they reached Lind about 15 minutes later that they were going at one hundred miles per hour. Two miles west of Lind at the point of the hill where the grade began to be heavier, a stock train coming down at about a thirty-five-mile gait crashed into the runaway cars. The engineer and fireman jumped in time to save their lives. The engine was upset, several feet of track obliterated, five or six cars smashed to kindling wood, 300 head of sheep killed, but luckily no person was seriously hurt.

100 Years Ago

Ritzville-Journal Times

July 26, 1923

Arthur sells barber shop

Charles Arthur has sold his barber shop, known as the Grand Barber Shop on the north side of Main Ave. to Wilson L. Weber of Spokane, who has taken charge. Mr. Arthur, who has been here about a year, expects to move to Fort Bragg, Cal. to reside.

Sunday hottest since July 1918

Sunday the temperature ran up to 106 degrees Fahrenheit. It was an exceedingly hot day. The wind was hot too. This temperature is the hottest recorded since July 17 and 18, 1918 when the same degree was registered. Since Sunday the weather has not been quite so hot. There have been some clouds, but much of the time it has been sultry.

Local Brevities

Engineers of the U.S. Reclamation Service were here last week working from here westerly. They are determining the elevations for prospective routes of canals for the Columbia Basin irrigation project.

The work of building the addition to the O'Neil warehouse is pushing right along. The corrugated sides and roof have been put in place. Harry Schuler has charge of the construction work.

75 Years Ago

Ritzville-Journal Times

July 22, 1948

City council takes aim at septic tank overflow

The problem of sewage disposal pressed heavily on Ritzville's city council this week after members conferred Friday night with Walter L. Woodward of Spokane, city engineer, and Wilson Bow, state sanitation engineer. Heavy rains this spring have completely wiped out the two present tanks as effective disposal units, Woodward said.

The tanks, located northwest of the city, are overflowing. They created one stagnant pool of nearly 1,000 square feet, half filled a nearby ditch, and poured sewage water onto Ed Tom's wheat fields. Moreover, councilmen heard, the odor when the wind is in the "right" direction is nauseating and overwhelming in residential areas just past the old Lincoln school.

Bow told the council its best bet is to install a primary treatment disposal plant which mechanically disposes of practically all the solid matter and leaves only water to be run off into the gravel pits past the present septic tanks.

At the Ritz

Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, and Charles Coburn in "B.F.'s Daughter."

50 Years Ago

Ritzville-Journal Times

July 26, 1973

Metal sculptor fashions statue of machine parts

LIND-A sculptor in steel, Earl Franz, has created a statue from old machinery parts. The wheat farmer 10 miles south of here turned laughter on himself and fellow farmers as he welded together his metal man from worn-out machinery parts.

The more-than-life-size caricature smokes a cigar made from a railroad spike, and stuffed into a hole in an old brake drum is his face. But as yet no one has come up with a suitable name. The joke at the Franz place is that he's the hired man who doesn't do anything.

The crowning glory of the metal man is his hat. It's made from parts of an old vacuum cleaner and the end out of an old barrel. Looking behind the statue's face the visitor finds an assembly of old parts from household appliances.

Meter fine boxes are broken open, contents taken

Vandals got away with perhaps not more than $10 when Friday night they broke locks on the red meter fine-collecting boxes along Main Avenue. Chief of Police Don Koehler said the person or persons must have used a pry bar to break the locks. The contents of the boxes couldn't have been too much, surmised Koehler, since police officers hadn't been able to enforce parking regulations during the torn-up period while Main Avenue was repaved.

25 Years Ago

Ritzville-Journal Times

July 23, 1998

Several accidents, arrests occur on area roadways

Christopher Dunn, 20, from Iowa, was arrested on July 14 at 1:20 p.m. after being stopped by Trooper Shepherd for improper lane travel on US 395 near the Franklin County line. He was arrested for driving under the influence. A passenger, Anthony Skyles, 19, Iowa, was cited and released for marijuana and paraphernalia. The case is still under investigation. Seized from the vehicle was possibly LSD, with authorities awaiting confirmation from the crime lab.

Credit exemption good for state wheat farmers

Washington wheat producers reacted with a mixture of elation and relief when Congress voted recently to exempt government farm credit sales from U.S. sanctions against Pakistan. The legislation, signed immediately by President Clinton, came just one day before Pakistan's scheduled 350,000 metric ton tendered for optional origin soft white wheat. "This is news we needed to hear," said Christopher Shaffer, Chairman of the Washington Wheat Commission.

"Wheat prices are at a 70-year low and we were a hair's breath away from losing our biggest market. We'll breath a lot easier know we can continue to sell our wheat to Pakistan."

As the singling largest importer of Pacific Northwest wheat, Pakistan purchased 2.23 million metric tons of the region's soft white wheat in the 1997/98 marketing year, valued at $310 million. All U.S. wheat sales to Pakistan in recent years have been sold through U.S. Department of Agriculture GSM-102 farm export credit guarantees. The new legislation exempts the credit guarantees from the sanctions imposed on Pakistan following their testing of nuclear weapons.

- The Journal