100 YEAR AGODec. 10, 1908

The bridge over the river on Residence Street was accepted at the (Enterprise) city council meeting Monday night from Contractor Marks, who was given a warrant for $411 in payment of same. …Marshal Clemens was ordered to ring the curfew bell each night at 8 o’clock, at which hour all school children must be off the street. The marshal was hired for another month.

The Enterprise council at a called meeting Thursday night authorized a contract with engineer R.K. Lowry to make surveys, plans and specifications for the city water system at a cost of $300.

WALLOWA – The phone line from Flora to a connection near Sled Springs with the government line running from here to Chico has been completed and is open for talks at 25 cents per. It will prove a great convenience for both the people of the north country and of this valley.

PITTSBURG – The Pittsburg Livestock Association held its annual meeting on Nov. 20. … The Forest Preserve has proven a blessing in these parts. It is hard for a few of us to see it that way, but doubtless in time we will be telling neighbors that we knew it was a good thing all the time but didn’t want to let on.

70 YEARS AGODec. 8, 1938

Christmas trees will brighten Main Street in a few days. The chamber of commerce Tuesday evening voted to have the holiday reminders in place earlier than usual, avoiding the delay of last year. The committee in charge consists of L.E. Jordan and George Richards and they have several offers of trees already.

Further decline in the number of children in the county has shown in the annual school census reported by the district clerks and compiled by Supt. Ruth Hayes. The total was 2,170, the lowest in all the years that records have been compared. (The highest was 3,596 in 1916).

With the Forest Service building at Wallowa nearly finished, the CCC crew of 14 men who have been working the job a couple of months will leave Friday, returning to their camp at Squaw Creek on the Umatilla forest not far from Pendleton.

IMNAHA BRIDGE – Last Friday evening seemed like July or August instead of December. Wind and hail, thunder and lightning, made us all wonder what had happened. The wind blew a tree down at Ducketts’ and one of the dance halls.

50 YEARS AGODec. 11, 1958

Plans for a nation-wide pow wow of Indians of Wallowa County in connection with the celebration of the Oregon Centennial in 1959 were announced by the Enterprise Chamber of Commerce Tuesday night. … Essentially the plan calls for a 10-day pow wow of Indians from tribes all over the United States during the days immediately before Chief Joseph Days at the end of July.

Construction and land use permits for the construction of the TV translators station above Alder Slope was received Monday, it was announced by Wayne McFetridge, secretary of the translator association.

Approximately 300 persons were served free lunch at the annual meeting of the Wallowa County Grain Growers Saturday. A report on the business of the cooperative for fiscal year ending June 30, showed it had retail sales over $1,000,000 for the first time in its 14-year history.

EDITORIAL – U.S. missile experts have announced that they plan to launch a satellite in the near future with mice and monkeys aboard. We have formally protested to the army, not so much because we object to this kind of treatment of mice and monkeys, but because we think there are better animals to send and better ways to run through billions of taxpayers’ money.

25 YEARS AGODec. 8, 1983

Outgoing president Randy Anderson handed the gavel to new Enterprise Chamber of Commerce president Terry Geddes after the chamber’s Tom and Jerry luncheon Tuesday noon. Other new officers installed were vice president Alan Mickelson, secretary-treasurer Joan Wheeler, Helen Bobbitt, Jari Homan, Sondra Lozier, Tom Cutter and Charlotte McIver.

High school sophomores Amy Bales of Joseph, Rob Palmer of Enterprise and Lujennie Tillett of Wallowa were all winners in the Hugh O’Brien Award contest held last month in each of the schools.

New owners of The Shoe Hut in Enterprise are Larry and Sue Wagner. Both are natives of Enterprise and recently “moved home” to take over their new businesses.

An October 1983 article in the Wallowa County Chieftain about the 1933 robbery at the Stockgrowers and Farmers National Bank in Wallowa in the “50 Years Ago” column sent Pat McGinnis to the Chieftain office, scrapbook in hand. He shared stories of the capture and imprisonment of the “desperate outlaws” by his uncle, Cliff McGinnis.