From the Files

125 Years Ago

Adams County News

June 1, 1898

Local and Personal

Tromp Donald and his mother were in town Thursday.

Don't you want a hair net? If so, call at the Model Millinery.

Duck shooting is said to be good at the lakes on Main Street and Railroad Avenue.

J.M. Harris, the jolly stable man, fell last week and nearly broke his back. He would have done so had he not struck the other side first.

While returning from the memorial exercises at Sprague last Monday, John Sirginson's team became frightened and ran into the hack of Mr. Womach, partially upsetting Sirginson's hack and throwing him out, leaving his wife and two children in the hack. They continued to run and finally threw Mrs. Sirginson against a wire fence, badly cutting her leg. The children escaped with slight bruises.

100 Years Ago

Ritzville-Journal Times

May 31, 1923

Three are naturalized

Monday was naturalization day in the superior court. Three were admitted to citizenship. They were William Gustav Tolle, Henry F. Scheller, John Schoessler. The petitions of Jacob Thaut and Euard Faure were continued. The petition of Henry Miller was denied without prejudice.

Auto overturns, man is

killed on state highway

Volney B. Dortch of Los Angeles was instantly killed on the Central Washington highway near the Fullquartz place toward Sprague when his car overturned. His wife and small son were not badly hurt. Clifford Nelson, salesman for the Spokane Drug Co., who was headed toward Ritzville, witnessed the accident. The Dortch car was traveling at a good rate of speed and the driver apparently started to turn out before meeting Nelson's car.

The place was on a fill where the road crosses over a cattle chute just east of the Cow Creek bridge. The gravel at the edge of the road is rather loose while the packed roadway is rutted.

Evidently Mr. Dortch felt his car skidding in the loose gravel and turned it sharply back to the road, cramping the car so that it suddenly turned clear over, landing right side up in the center of the road. Nelson stopped his car and rushed up. He found the man lying apparently dead and the wife and child alive but in great distress. He then hurried back to his car, turned around and headed for Sprague to get a doctor.

75 Years Ago

Ritzville-Journal Times

May 27, 1948

Price on 27,000-Acre

Ranch Heads for Court

Three Lind ranchers and two Ritzville attorneys are involved in the largest single land condemnation suit to arise in Eastern Washington for many years.

The ranchers are A.J. Urquhart and his son, J.D. Urquhart, and Gus F. Wahl. These men are partners in operating a 27,000-acre cattle and wheat ranch, one of the largest in this area. About six sections of the 27,000 acres are located in the extreme western panhandle of Adams County. The rest extends westward into Grant County.

When the federal government filed condemnation suits for land needed for construction of Potholes dam and the Potholes reservoir, a project designed to store up runoff water for further irrigation in the Columbia Basin, it was discovered the entire area of the Urquhart-Wahl ranch was included in the suits.

At the Cozy Theater, Lind

Johnny Weissmuller and Brenda Joyce in "Tarzan and the Huntress"

At the Ritz

Clark Gable and Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind"

Humphrey Bogart in "Treasure of Sierra Madre"

50 Years Ago

Ritzville-Journal Times

May 31, 1973

Bullets halt speeding truck

Three state troopers Tuesday brought a wildly fleeing truck and trailer to a halt after a 27-mile chase from the Tokio interchange to near the top of the long hill south of the Lind turnoff on U.S. 395.

Alvin W. Ranard, 29, Priest River, Idaho and Pasco, didn't stop until the last bullets were shot through his radiator and front tire. Sheriff Clint Rowe carried warrants for the arrest of Ranard on charges of driving while his driver's license was suspended. Apparently Ranard knew of the likelihood of the warrants awaiting his arrival here.

Modernized postal

service is described

The U.S. Postal Service is adopting methods of private commercial enterprise, Postmaster Rudy Thaut told members of the Ritzville Chamber of Commerce at their weekly luncheon yesterday. Right here in Ritzville the post office soon may be selling envelopes not stamped, packaging material, self-inking rubber stamps and a small scale service of food stamps, said Postmaster Thaut.

25 Years Ago

Ritzville-Journal Times

May 28, 1998

Enrollment numbers create funding problem for school

Faced with reduced student enrollment and a tighter-than-ever budget, four teacher resignations and one classified staff member resignation may have come at a good time for the Ritzville School District. Resignations last month were received from Dennis Koch, Pam Koch and Vel Babbitt, who are all retiring. Classified full-time employee Terry Janzen also submitted a retirement resignation.

This month a fourth teacher, Jane Smedley, who has taught kindergarten, also submitted a resignation. Smedley will be moving from the district. Supt. John McGregor told the school board at its Monday meeting that, "It is clear that we have more people (staff) than we can pay for. There is no question that we have to reduce staff."

Ritzville's May enrollment was 417 students with the district looking at budgeting for 410 students in the coming year. The budget number for the current school year was 445 which still left the district overstaffed. - The Journal