Remember When?

105 YEARS AGO • MAY 14, 1916

MOTORBOAT GOES OVER DAM

Grasping the iron work and crawling up to the top of the dam was all that saved the lives of Messrs. Webb, Hyner and Jones, all employed as riggers for the Thompson Falls Power company. Saturday evening when the fine gasoline motorboat belonging to the company was caught in the current and started over the dry channel dam.

The boys were doing some work above the dam and failed to realize the power of the current and the first thing they knew the boat started over the dam with a velocity that gave them no time to do more than to grasp the nearest iron supports, free themselves from the launch and climb for dear life to the top of the dam where they were save.

The boat made the trip tranquilly over the dam and down the river as far as the power plant where it was captured and tied up. On Sunday it was loaded on wheels and brought up to the company’s repair shop where it was found but little worse for its trip other than the rudder was broken, the shaft bent a little and some damage to the stern of the hull. It has now been repaired and put back into the water.

While the boys escaped uninjured, they are not anxious to repeat the experience.

40 YEARS AGO • MAY 14, 1981

FERK’S CASH FOUND IN NOXON RESERVOIR

More than $170 in Canadian and U.S. currency plus some checks and the day’s receipts stolen from Ferk’s Lounge in December has been found below the Burlington Northern railroad bridge across the Noxon Rapids Reservoir below Trout Creek.

The checks found in a canvas money bag identify them as being the property of Ferk’s, said County Attorney Claude Burlingame. Most of the more than $11,000 taken in the theft has not been recovered.

The money was found by Jim Pratt, BN section foreman, while he was walking along the shoreline while waiting to make a phone call near the north end of the bridge. Pratt said he found some $1 and $2 bills plus some $20 and $50 Canadian bills along with a piece of Viet Cong currency.

Pratt said he first saw what looked like $2 bills floating in the water near the shore.

That afternoon, Pratt had to use the telephone to his dispatcher several more times and found more and more of the Canadian currency, plus a federal reserve note.

That weekend he put the water soaked bills under his bed while he and his family went to Spokane.

Monday, he took one of his fellow BN employees with him to look for more money and to find some means of identifying where the money came from. Up to that time, Pratt said he did not realize the money was some of the currency stolen from Ferk’s safe.

While looking for other evidence to identify the source of the money, Pratt spied a Federal Reserve Bank canvas money bag under a piece of driftwood in the water. Inside the sack were day receipts from Ferk’s and some cancelled checks.

Pratt called Sheriff Harvey Shultz to report the find.

Shultz went to the Pratt home and after being informed of the find, said Marshall Harry Petersen should be called since the burglary was a city case.

A few days later, Pratt guided Marshall Petersen and some other officers to the site and they found some more money.

Pratt said he found the first currency Friday, April 10, and the money bag Monday, April 13.

A man has been charged with the burglary of Ferk’s and now is awaiting trial scheduled next month in District Court here.