100 YEARS AGO

April 3, 1913

Contrary to popular opinion, not everybody can vote at a school election in Oregon. Very few women here have this right even under the recently granted suffrage. Under Oregon law, only taxpayers or heads of families have the right to vote at a school election.

Many hundreds of virgin soil will be broken in Wallowa County this spring, particularly in the district northeast of Enterprise. Thousands of acres are held by homesteaders in this section, and the new land law requires cultivation of a part of each claim.

The president of the bachelors club wishes to correct the assertions of its member, Ronald Snow, who is a bachelor more from force of circumstance than personal choice. The president wishes it understood the club is merely a temporary organization, and any officer or member is not to be denied the right or privilege of association with young ladies when necessity requires, and will thereby break no pledge made when entering the club.

Lora Kooch has been engaged to teach another month in the Swamp Creek school. She just finished a six-month term, which was as long as the directors originally intended to keep the school, but they concluded to add one more month.

70 YEARS AGO

April 1, 1943

Mr. and Mrs. J.D. Walker heard a message purported to be from their son, a prisoner of war at Taiwan, Japan, broadcast over short wave radio from Tokyo last week.

Judge Ben Weathers and Mrs. Weathers returned Monday from Portland where they witnessed the launching of the Liberty ship Chief Joseph. According to Mr. Weathers, who told of the launching ceremonies at the Lions Club Tuesday night, the occasion was marked with more fanfare than any other launching in the history of the Oregon shipyard. Erskine Wood, attorney for the Maritime Commission and son of Charles Erskine Scott Wood, adjutant to Gen. Howard at the time of the war against Chief Joseph, was the principal speaker.

Photo caption In the above picture are the boys who left last week for the induction center at Spokane: Aaron Richard Lines, Carlyle Wade Roundy, Vern White, Dale Marvin Miller, Arthur Lubbes, Harold Burgett, Charles Peterson, Arnold Jack Brooks, Alfred Eugene Carper, Donald Earl Schaeffer, Marshall Thomas Weaver, Hubert Andrew Smith and Stanley Earl Haney.

JOSEPH Well, here it is spring again. Snow has melted, kids play marbles, birds sing, here and there a trash fire can be seen, galoshes are put away and mud pies take the place of snowballs. A fine chinook is taking care of that chill sheet of ice that covers Wallowa Lake.

50 YEARS AGO

April 4, 1963

A sound vote of confidence was given to the county court Monday night by a large crowd which attended a meeting called for the purpose of discussing objections to the final plans submitted by the architect for the new nursing home addition to Wallowa Memorial Hospital.

West Side Story, the cinema production that walked off with all the Oscars in 1961, is now running at Vista Theater.

A Wallowa County farmer and his son won honors at the State FFA Convention at The Dalles recently. Arnold Cornwell, a farmer on upper Prairie Creek, received the Honorary State Farmer Degree (one of 10 in the state), and his son, Jerry, also received the State Farmer Degree. This is the first father and son combination in the county to receive these awards it is believed.

IMNAHA March wound up with rain, wind and snow here, although the fruit trees are trying to bloom. The apricots are blooming near the Bridge and on the Lower River. The telephone company had repairmen here working on the phone lines for several days. The lines have bee out part of the time over two weeks.

25 YEARS AGO

March 31, 1988

An Enterprise man and his 18-year-old son are considered heroes by a grateful Richard Hook of Elgin and his family after the pair saved Hook from drowning in the Snake River near Oxbow Dam Saturday afternoon. If it wasnt for Ernie and Ken Knifong, my husband would be dead, said Kathy Hook Monday.

The doctors claim they dont mean to threaten anyone. But the grim prospect is that Wallowa Countys four practitioners could be taking their satchels out of town next year if the way they do business isnt allowed to change. At issue is the weekend staffing of the hospital emergency room.

Domestic and international postage rates will increase Sunday, April 3, according to the U.S. Postal Service. Postage on first class letters jumps 13.6 percent to 25 cents and the postage to send a postcard will increase a penny to 15 cents.

A metal fabrication manufacturer from Eugene plans to locate a plant in Wallowa, residents learned at a town meeting Tuesday. Jack Starmer informed Betty Conrad, U.S. Bank operations supervisor at Wallowa, that he had completed negotiations with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for the purchase of the Bighorn Forest Products building.