Prisoner, 14, escapes from jailer

Published 4:47 pm Tuesday, April 14, 2015

100 YEARS AGO

April 15, 1915

On a complaint charging larceny by bailee, J.F. Head, former lessee of the Joseph flouring mill, was arrested last week. … The complaint, signed by F.D. McCully, who is interested in the mill company, alleged that last September and October Mr. Head received 2000 bushels of wheat from Mr. McCully, that he failed to account for it and had converted it to his own use. The value was stated to be $2,000. Mr. Head had the mill last year, remaining in charge until serious complaints were made late in the fall.

Digging through mud, clay and gravel the sewer builders (in Enterprise) have laid the pipe across the Bank pasture from the north end to the neighborhood of the fair grounds. This part of the job presents some difficulties owing to the marshy character of the ground, although this is not as serious as some had expected.

The strangest animal story of the season comes from the upper part of Leap. Easter Sunday a cat belonging on the J.N. Anderson home came into the house with a small snake wrapped around its neck. It was one of those queer little snakes with the head and tail so much alike one can hardly tell which is which, except by the eyes. The cat was put out of doors and Mr. Anderson got a small stick and sharpened one end and pried the snake off. The cat was pretty badly chocked and Mr. Anderson says it was not a pleasant job working over that snake.

70 YEARS AGO

April 12, 1945

Sawmill operations at the Murrey mill in Enterprise and at the Mt. Joseph Pine Co. mill in Joseph got underway for the 1945 season Monday. The Bowman-Hicks mill in Wallowa has been shut down since last Thursday when they ran out of logs. They will not resume operation until the weather permits a resumption of logging operations, which may be a month or longer.

Morris Knapp will open a new Marshall-Wells store in the building just west of the Penney store Friday, April 20. The quarters for this store have been completely rebuilt and redecorated in recent months and will be one of the most modern and attractive stores in Enterprise. … The Marshall-Wells company, one of the largest, if not the largest, wholesale hardware dealers in the west, have furnished men to assist in the designing of the sore and have supplied most of the large stock of merchandise already on hand.

Approximately 100 delegates representing more than a dozen sportsmen’s clubs and associations in the eastern Oregon counties of Baker, Union, Umatilla and Wallowa met Tuesday in La Grande and adopted a constitution and by-laws for the formation of an Eastern Oregon Sportsmen’s council. … Representing the Wallowa County Sportsmen’s association at the meeting were: Chris Bue, Orville Adey, Kenneth Biggar, Chester Bennett and Gwen Coffin.

50 YEARS AGO

April 15, 1965

Kenneth Witty, local fisheries biologist with the Oregon State Game Commission, announced this week that an agreement has been signed between the game commission and the Mountain Sheep Ditch company for public access to Kinney Lake eight miles east of Joseph. About half of the shore line of the small lake is owned by the ditch company and the rest by private parties who have allowed the public to use the sporting facility.

A 14-year-old Klamath Falls youth, … picked up Sunday by John Duckworth, Wallowa city marshal, for juvenile authorities in Klamath Falls, escaped from the county jailer, A.W. Kirkpatrick, Monday morning, dashed down the street and gave officers a good hide-and-seek game for a few minutes. … Sheriff Mark Marks took up the chase and found some students who had seen the youth enter the yard at the Cressie Green house. Marks conducted a careful search but failed to locate his quarry. Then he noted that the aged dog of the Greens, said to be almost blind and deaf, was snooping into an old cesspool hole and occasionally lifting his nose in the air to wail out some kind of signal. Marks went over to take a look, and there, back in the den, was the fugitive.

25 YEARS AGO

April 12, 1990

An estimated 250 persons concerned about how natural resources in Wallowa County are managed on Saturday turned out amid tight security to hear how resource issues are affecting rural communities throughout America. Bruce Vincent, a fourth generation logger from Libby, Mont., and Anna Sparks, a public servant from Eureka, Calif., urged local area residents to get involved in the debate of natural resources, saying their way of life is constantly under attack from outsiders who want control of the land.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week announced that it will begin efforts to clean up an 18-acre site located about a mile from Joseph contaminated with chromium, copper, and arsenic. EPA has hired the engineering firm of ICF Kaiser to conduct an investigation of the site to determine the nature and extent of contamination and cleanup alternatives, according to Chip Humphrey, project manager, who on Monday outlined upcoming Superfund activities to local officials. … Contamination of the site occurred while Joseph Forest Products (JFP) was operating a wood treatment facility there between 1974 and 1985.