Remember When?

105 YEARS AGO • OCTOBER 9, 1919

CLEAN UP WEEK

The local town council has designated the week commencing Monday, October 13 as clean up week and requests all residents to gather all the rubbish and garbage etc. around their places during that week, and on Monday, October 20th they will have teams to haul the rubbish away providing it is put in boxes or barrels so that it can be handled conveniently

This is done at the request of the Board of Health, who will make a thorough inspection on Thursday, October 23, and those persons not having complied with the orders of the Town Council will be prosecuted according to law.

Cleaning up the town is done by order of the Board of Health for the purpose of preventing the recurrence of an epidemic of sickness in the town this fall and winter and all should be interested enough in this to comply with the demands without being prosecuted.

However, this should not be the only reason for a clean up of the town. Everyone should have enough pride in the appearance of the place where they live to make the effort to clean up.

The town of Thompson Falls is beautifully situated, but it could be made considerably more beautiful and attractive if all would join in an effort to make a lot of needed improvements.

1918-1920 were the years of the Great Influenza Epidemic or the Spanish Flu Epidemic which resulted in millions of deaths.

85 YEARS AGO • OCTOBER 11, 1939

DEDICATION EXERCISES HELD FOR NEW AINSWORTH FIELD

Dedication exercises were held Friday for the new athletic field. The exercises were as follows:

A parade by the 50 piece High School Pep Band. This was a very noteworthy performance. Following this a dedicatory address was given by Attorney A.S. Ainsworth, and also a speech by Supt. Geo Harris. At the conclusion the band played marches and the school song was sung (I wonder what the school song was in 1939?).

Prior to dedicatory exercises a delegation of business people including the baseball management and team requested that the field be designated as the Ainsworth Athletic Field. Mr. Ainsworth consented and at the official dedicatory exercises the above name was given.

This field is a splendid recreational ground. A high steel fence surrounds it. It is situated in a natural amphitheater. The town and school district jointly contributed funds to achieve the goal. The WPA furnished the labor. All told, with WPA labor included it is estimated that the field cost around $8,000. The city and school share of the expense included only foremanship, tools and materials. An attractive grandstand was built, and this summer a heavy stand of lawn grass was cultivated over the leveled field.

This recreational field will be something Thompson Falls can look forward to with pride for years and years to come.

OCTOBER 25, 1939

SALMON COMING UP

The great annual Salmon run up from the Pend d’Oreille and Kootenai is now starting in earnest. For the past week fishermen by the hundreds have been grab hooking them. Sunday at the Heron Rapids more than five hundred people lined the banks of the rapids and grab hooked with poles for the silvery horde making their annual pilgrimage to their upper stream spawning grounds.

The salmon run in full strength will soon reach the great falls of Thompson. Already below the powerhouse dam next to the fish ladder men are grab hooking and cast spooning for fish and catches are already large.

My father, Jack Hagerman said when the salmon were running there were so many going up Prospect Creek that you could almost walk across the creek on their backs. His mother, my grandmother, said they took barrels down to the mouth of Prospect Creek when she was a kid and the family filled the barrels with salted down fish. I can’t imagine the smell when they opened the barrels to get supper out.