Independently owned since 1905
Independently owned since 1905
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6 YEARS AGO • JULY 11, 1918 NEWS OF LOCAL INTEREST Fishing has been unusually good in the streams of this vicinity during the past week and has attracted a large number who have been daring enough to brave the mosquitoes. One local Isaak Walton says that on Thompson River Saturday he had to take his flies out of his pocket because the fish were jumping in after them. He then put the flies in his basket, swung it out over the stream and in a short time had his 25 pounds of trout without getting his feet wet. Can you beat it? 107 YEARS AGO ...
7 YEARS AGO • JUNE 1953 INMATES BEAUTIFY COMMUNITY There’s no doubt about it, Sheriff Wally Britton has the welfare and betterment of his community at heart. We all appreciate the “clean look” and fine appearance given to the parking near the railroad tracks up above the courthouse. The Sheriff took jail inmates out to do the job of filling in dirt, leveling, planting grass seed, etc. around the blue spruce trees which are thriving and doing beautifully. Another project which was so noticeable this Memorial Day was the old Thompson Falls c...
3 YEARS AGO • JUNE 17, 1993 LOGGING NOT HORSE PLAY ON WEST END In the fresh mountain sunshine of an early summer day, a draft horse waits patiently for his owner to finish preparations so another log can be skidded down the mountain. Doug Albano has been horse logging in Cabinet Ranger District for approximately 20 years. Albano, who works for Vinson Timber Products, said the Forest Service tends to opt for horse logging on lands they especially want to protect, such as those with sensitive soil composition or where building roads would be too...
4 YEARS AGO • JUNE 23, 1983 TC GETTING NEW MARKET, CAFE Two new additions are being made to the Trout Creek business community. The Trout Creek Market will be owned and operated by Robert Studwell, presently of Vancouver, Wash., and Sam Ross of Trout Creek and their families. The 3200-square-foot market will be a full-service store, selling groceries, produce, meat and other items. There will also be lockers available for beef and wild meat storage. Studwell said they hope to eventually install gas pumps, but not at first. He hopes to be o...
7 YEARS AGO • JUNE 3, 1953 M.C. Sutherland, chairman of the board of county commissioners reports that the Paradise-St. Regis ferry is closed again because of high water in the Clark Fork River. Large numbers of logs and trees are in the turbulent water which could collide with the ferry and damage it and possibly cause accidents. This is the third time this spring the ferry has been closed due to the danger of high water. Heavy rains over the Memorial Day week have caused the river to remain at high and dangerous levels. A new 35-foot b...
REVIEWING THE YEAR 1933 KING DAVID “King David the Lord” of the “Hill of the Lord” demented old negro living on the Blue Slide after seven years silence spoke again. For seven years previously because of a spiritual revelation he had refused to utter a sound, and communicated by sign and writing to other people. Bill McNorton was his correct name, he had come west in his youth and was one of the early day pioneers in Sanders County. He accumulated considerable wealth in the liberal, tolerant west, and associated on an equal basis with his nei...
3 YEARS AGO • MAY 27, 1993 SOPHIE MOLES TO CELEBRATE A CENTURY OF LIVING Sophie Moles will celebrate a century of life June 1. She and her new husband, Bert, came to the area from Chester in 1914. A friend of her husband’s, with whom Bert used to round up cattle, had told them about the place. Her husband got a job cooking for Donlan’s sawmill near Belknap. They lived in a shack by the sawmill, and she helped him by setting the table and cleaning up. Moles’ first child was born in 1914. Leo was followed by Lester a year later and Clarenc...
AN ILL FATED TOWN Another fire visited Belknap last week, and destroyed a number of buildings and much cut cordwood. Among the houses burned were J.J. Verkler’s door and sash factory; the saloon of the Sprague Brewery and the blacksmith shop in the rear; C.W. Godfrey’s cabin and several tents. Godfrey’s cabin contained two tons of hay. The loss is estimated to be in the neighborhood of $3,000. The entire town had a very narrow escape. ADVERTISEMENT COEUR D’ALENE BREWERY Carl Mallon, Proprietor, Belknap, Montana LOCATION OF BREWERY Five hundred...
4 YEARS AGO APRIL 21, 1983 PLAINS AUTO AGENCY CHANGES HANDS Vacura Motors of Plains, a Ford dealer since 1924 and the only remaining new car dealer in Sanders County, changed management last week as John Szafryk, a Dillon native and former Anaconda Ford dealer, took over as general manager. Szafryk has 20 years of experience in the auto business. He is a Navy veteran and comes to Plains from Idaho. Clyde Terrell, formerly associated with Larson’s Chevrolet and more recently manager of the Plains Chevron Service Station, has joined Vacura Motor...
5 YEARS AGO • MAY 3, 1973 NEW OWNER Ron Turk, who for the past year and a half has been employed by L&O Motors of Plains, a Chevrolet dealer (presently the Plains Public Library) as service manager, Monday reopened the Husky Service Station here under the name Ron’s Husky Service. Floyd (Bud) Derrickson, who was parts manager for the Plains firm, will be employed by Turk until he takes over the bulk plant later this spring from R.Hershel Butte (now Energy Partners). 30 YEARS AGO • APRIL 22, 1993 PASS ROUTE NOW OPEN Travel over the Thomp...
8 YEARS AGO • APRIL 22, 1943 BRIDGES WASHED OUT High water reports are coming in all the time now. A bridge washed out here, there and someplace else. The second Prospect Creek bridge was washed out and Commissioner Sutherland had a crew last week working on it. All over this section bridge washouts and flooding conditions are being experienced. There is worry over the cable on the St. Regis Ferry. Real high water isn’t here yet even though crews are guarding the boom even now. It is estimated that at crest this year the high waters will exc...
4 YEARS AGO • APRIL 7, 1983 FALLS BANK MOVING This is moving weekend for officers and employees of the First State Bank of Montana and Monday the Thompson Falls financial institution will open for business in its new home across from the City Hall and south of the Towne House Hotel (restaurant in the Black Bear Hotel building). While preparations for the move have been underway for several weeks, the actual moving of equipment, machines and furniture will start Friday afternoon. The bank will continue to maintain its regular lobby hours w...
8 YEARS AGO • MARCH 31, 1943 ROCK SLIDE A big rock slide blocked the Clark Fork highway east of Thompson Falls near Weeksville Saturday evening. The slide was about a block long. Approximately 50,000 yards of rock impeded highway traffic. The highway department had to bring in a steam shovel and it was not until Tuesday evening the road was opened for travel. APRIL 21, 1943 • A GOOD OFFER The Army has relinquished the buildings and property at the Thompson River CCC camp, to the Forest Service. These buildings were of excellent con...
3 YEARS AGO • APRIL 15, 1993 VALLEY BANK OPENS HOT SPRINGS DOORS The new Valley Bank of Hot Springs opened its doors for business Monday morning, April 5, with a bit of paving and landscaping still needed to complete the exterior view. Allen Burk, president of the Ronan and Hot Springs banks said the move into Hot Springs had been exciting, as it constituted a major expansion for their business. “The response has been overwhelming,” Buhr said. He said the community has been so cooperative and appreciative of the new facility he feels assur...
7 YEARS AGO • MARCH, 1953 CLARK FORK FERRY IS DISCUSSED M.C. Sutherland, chairman of the Sanders County Board of Commissioners and Al Libra, County Attorney met with the Mineral County Board of Commissioners in Superior to discuss financing and construction of a new ferry across the Clark Fork River between St. Regis and Paradise. An agreement was drawn and signed by which the two counties will share the cost of rebuilding the ferry, each to be repaid from a percentage of tolls collected. Total cost of the project to be approximately $8,000. T...
8 YEARS AGO FEBRUARY 24, 1943 FRED BROWN RECOUNTS EXPERIENCES The Cabinet Forest was placed under administration April 1, 1907 with headquarters at Thompson Falls, Montana. The first supervisor was Ferdinand A. Silcox, who later became Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Washington, D.C. Eight months after the Cabinet Forest was placed under administration, Ranger Brown was employed by the second supervisor, Roy Headley, who had just recently retired at Washington, D.C. He was in charge of Fire Control for the entire U.S. at the time of his reti...
6 YEARS AGO • MARCH 7, 1918 LOGS COME AS ICE GOES Supply of Ice for Local Users Was Stored Just in Time The weatherman gave the ice users just the necessary time to store their supply for the summer before turning on the heat again. A force of men succeeded in cutting enough for local use before the thaw came, but they had no time to spare, as the ice went out the first of the week. The cutting was only about six inches thick, but all the ice houses are filled and the quality is good. (Ice w...
MARCH MADNESS Thanks to John Hamilton for ghost writing my column this week. He’s a much better sports writer than I am. What do Thompson Falls High School, Gonzaga University basketball and the jersey No. 8 have in common? And what does all of that have to do with Previs Field? The answer to the first question is Art Previs, and the answer to the second is his father Steve. Art Previs was an all-state hoop player for Thompson Falls High School in the late 1940s playing for his dad who then went on to become a standout in college for Gonzaga i...
d105 YEARS AGO • FEBRUARY 28, 1918 WILL CUT MATCH TIMBER Start Erection of Mill at Whitepine to handle 5,000,000 Feet of Wood Work has been commenced by the Idaho Match Works on a saw mill about seven miles up Whitepine Creek to handle the cutting of about 5,000,000 feet of whitepine timber for the manufacture of matches. The machinery arrived the latter part of the week and is being taken to the mill site and a force of men is at work on the building. The timber which will be worked up into match blocks has been purchased from the government b...
10 YEARS AGO • FEBRUARY 15, 1968 FIRE LEVELS LARSON STORE Fire completely destroyed Thompson Falls’ oldest and largest retail establishment, Larsons & Greens, Inc. early Wednesday morning. The fire was first noted when a transformer on an electric power pole at the rear of the building exploded and flashes of light awoke Matt Marich and Duke Sallee who reside nearby. The alarm was turned into the sheriff’s office at 1:35 a.m. Leveled by the flames were the grocery, dry goods, appliance and hardware departments of the firm. Nothing was saved...
EXCERPT FROM BOOK “WILD HORSE PLAINS” BY JOHN RHONE 1969 As I sit here this hot August afternoon and watch Jim Baker and his nephew, Leon Perris, put up a large tonnage of hay, I feel I should write something about those adventurous, happy-go-lucky men who used to be part of the early day scene. By some they were called migratory laborers, by others bums, tramps and go-abouts. Whatever one wished to call them, they were important when haying and harvest time came. Jim Baker’s haying outfit consists of three tractors, one of which pull a swath...
EXCERPT FROM BOOK “WILD HORSE PLAINS” BY JOHN RHONE 1969 Introduction - Yes, I know I’m late – about thirty years. This job of writing a history of this section of Montana should have been done about that time, while many of the old timers who were actually here and took part in the early day events were still with us. Part of Rowena (Garber) Lyle’s story reads as follows: “My people came here from Missoula in 1889, and lived in the section house and my youngest brother was born there. They later moved to the ranch by buying the squatter’s...
6 YEARS AGO • JANUARY 3, 1918 SMALL STREAMS GO ON RAMPAGE Creeks Overflow Banks and Take Out Many Bridges RAILROAD SERVICE PARALIZED Power Company’s Transmission Line Also Suffers Damage From High Water The unprecedented rains which fell almost continuously during the past three weeks culminated Saturday night in the highest water in all the creeks in this vicinity that has ever been known. The steady drizzle that had been going on before, turned into a hard rainfall Saturday evening and before morning the already swollen streams ove...
8 YEARS AGO • JANUARY 27, 1943 THE BIG SNOW This section of Montana from all reports has experienced the heaviest snows in a decade for the past ten days. Old timers recount back to days long ago when the snow around here was three feet deep on the level. But very few of these generation here have seen such heavy snows. However, if the snow keeps falling as it is week after week and accumulating layer on layer, we may yet see three feet of snow on the level around here in the valley. We have seen January months when there wasn’t any snow on...
8 YEARS AGO • JANUARY 20, 1943 THE BIG FREEZE The town water system was among the casualties of the blizzard that struck with the breath of the Arctic through the Hell-Gate upon fair Missoula nestling on the west slope of the Rockies and then swept on up the Clarks Fork to strike Thompson Falls and beyond. On the high plains of central Montana reports come that at Havre it was 60 below. Trains were stopped reportedly because the locomotives froze up as they climbed the Great Divide. The blizzard Saturday when it reached Thomson Falls out of t...
