75 years ago

April 3, 1942

Open houses will be observed at both eastern Grays Harbor CCC camps Sunday afternoon in celebration of the birthday anniversary of the founding of the CCC nine years ago.

Camp Montesano’s open house will be held from 1 to 5 during which lunch will be served. Guides will escort visitors and explain operations of the soil conservation camp. Elma will welcome visitors all day with guides provided after 1 o’clock. A buffet lunch will be served all day at the forestry camp.

Last year hundreds visited the camps and large numbers are expected again Sunday. Lieut. W. H. Davis is commander at Montesano and Lieut. Herman Stokes at Elma.

50 years ago

April 3, 1967

• Rebuilding of the explosion-shattered Friend &Rikalo office and garage in South Aberdeen will begin immediately and today business went on almost as usual while Aberdeen police and fire departments and the state fire marshall continued an investigation of the blast which literally blew the building apart at 1:30 a.m. Sunday.

Some 14 homes in the vicinity of the West Curtis Street heavy-equipment yard sustained some damage from the explosion, which woke Aberdeen residents as far away as two miles. No one was injured.

• Quick-acting lifeguards at the Hoquiam city pool saved a little girl from drowning early Sunday afternoon.

Debbie Johnson, 6-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Johnson, had jumped into the water from the pool’s edge and sank to the bottom where she was spotted by lifeguard Sandy James.

Miss James, 18, dove in and pulled the girl out while a second lifeguard, Nancy Tibbetts, 19, called the fire department and police. A third person, Jack Brennan, 20 of Aberdeen, administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

25 years ago

April 3, 1992

Once-grand dreams for building a replica of the tall ship Columbia Rediviva have been reduced to piles of sawdust.

The keel, ceremoniously laid in March of 1990 to begin construction of a modern version of explorer Capt. Robert Gray’s ship, has been sawed apart and sold for lumber, according to Richard Miles, executive director of The Columbia Project. Construction never progressed much beyond the keel-laying.

Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom