World gone by
Published 1:30 am Saturday, June 13, 2026
85 YEARS AGO
June 14, 1941
Grays Harbor’s giant logging-lumber industry, employing upwards of 5,000 men, is expected to be roaring full tilt again next week after five weeks of strike-caused idleness.
IWA No. 2 spokesmen said that if the loggers agree to a temporary agreement, small gyppo outfits probably will resume operations Monday, while the larger operations will attempt to go back to work Tuesday and Wednesday.
June 16, 1941
Signs reading “Go Slow – Elk Crossing” will give the right-of-way on Aberdeen streets to Washington Elks attending the 38th annual state convention opening here Wednesday night. The signs, patterned after those which warn motorists to be careful of real elk on the Aberdeen-Raymond highway, were devised by the city’s street department.
June 17, 1941
Every available room in the Morck, Emerson, Washington, Gray, Queets, Fairmont and other leading Harbor hotels as well as almost all cabin camps were on the reservation list today for use of Washington Elks at the 38th annual convention starting here Wednesday. Some 2,500 delegates and guests are expected.
A huge bandstand, supported by three giant timbers, each 30 feet long, was built today in front of the Aberdeen Elks temple. From it, a dozen of the state’s finest bands will play in concert twice daily during the three-day meeting.
June 18, 1941
The story of Grays Harbor City may have a happy ending after all.
That apparently is the hope of a number of persons interested in property once the site of a city which grew rapidly and died almost overnight when the early boom town bubble burst leaving only the skeleton of a long wharf to deep water, rutted roadways and a few sunken blocks of concrete.
Construction of the Moon Island Airport has revived interest in the “City of Destiny” as enthusiastic boosters once described it to people standing in line all night to buy lots.
June 19, 1941
Radio programs tonight include “Twilight Trails,” “Capt. Danger,” “Glenn Miller Orchestra,” “Professor Quiz,” “Here’s the Clue,” “Amos ‘n Andy,” “Fred Waring, “Lum and Abner,” “Fannie Brice and Frank Morgan” and “Aldrich Family.”
60 YEARS AGO
June 14, 1966
Where will the rummage sales go?
That American institution — the rummage sale — is faced with the threat of extinction in Aberdeen. Quigg Bros.-McDonald Inc. is currently demolishing one of the major Harbor rummage sale sites, the old Harbor Hardware building. On top of that, the Aberdeen City Engineer’s office issued a permit last week to Friend & Rikalo Inc. to demolish the Rummage Mart at 408 E. First.
An upgraded tennis program for the Aberdeen schools was assured last night when the Board of Education accepted the bid of the Interstate Asphalt Co. for installing four new courts and agreed to provide a coach for girls’ tennis.
The courts will be located just above the Samuel Benn Gymnasium.
This will be the first time in many years that Aberdeen school girls have had the opportunity for tennis instruction.
June 15, 1966
Gov. Dan Evans was presented today with a “funeral bouquet for a dying industry” by a group of fishermen’s wives and he in turn signed their petition asking President Johnson for a 200-mile fish conservation limit.
Evans met with a group of about 20 women, representing the distaff side of various fishermen’s organizations, and explained the steps the state has taken in an effort to prompt action by the federal government on the Russian fishing problem.
June 16, 1966
Montesano’s celebrated “Operation Cooperation” fence on Main Street North is no longer just a “fence” — it has become a block-long gallery of colorful paintings.
Mrs. Margaret Graham and Mrs. Julia Daniels, local housewives, started the community project early last month with an eye to making the city more presentable for its nationally advertised May 21 Tree Farm Day celebration.
Many dairy farm, seashore and forest scenes as well as some modern art have been competed on the fence that hides vacant lots and ancient buildings. A cartoon-like painting of David Janssen, star of “The Fugitive” television series, is one outstanding contribution.
Merchants and townspeople have donated prizes for the best painting, and they will be awarded June 25.
June 17, 1966
Top 5 records chosen by young people this week include “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones; “I Am a Rock” by Simon & Garfunkel; “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind” by Lovin’ Spoonful; “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Perry Sledge and “Strangers in the Night” by Frank Sinatra.
• Aberdeen High School shortstop Don Mehlhoff was chosen today as one of 18 all-state performers to appear in the 23rd annual Seattle vs. State baseball doubleheader Monday night at Sick’s Seattle Stadium.
Mehlhoff tallied .341 for coach Ron Langhan’s Bobcat nine during the regular season and teamed with second-sacker Mike Hoonan to form one of the Southwest’s top double play combinations.
He joins Langhans, Harold Bergstrom and Rich Strom as AHS athletes chosen through the years for the all-star contest.
June 18, 1966
Grays Harbor is going to have a Welcome Wagon service. Appearing before the Grays Harbor Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors yesterday to outline plans and describe the service was Carol Ruddick who will be the hostess.
She was introduced by L.H. Nordell of Lamb-Grays Harbor, the firm that initiated the program.
Nordell explained that at the end of the fiscal year, Lamb’s will have spent $60,000 in recruiting people to work for the firm. “We want to hold these people — we’ve lost some — and we felt that one way to keep them here is to make their wives feel welcome and at home.”
The Welcome Wagon hostess will call on families when they move to town and on special family occasions.
35 YEARS AGO
June 14, 1991
The destiny of Christian Life School in Hoquiam, which has 60 pupils this year, is heading in a new direction and Doug Cotton, the school administrator says he’s looking forward to some changes next year.
The school has been associated with Christian Life Fellowship Church since its inception in 1984, but 60 percent of the students now attend other churches, Cotton says.
“So the emphasis has really changed. We don’t want the image that our school is just our church school, but that it is a school for the whole Christian community.
“We are all going to face the fact that we need each other,” Cotton said. “There’s no one church that has it all together. To make a difference, we all need each other.”
June 15, 1991
Three Harbor men, Rys Davis, Noel Erickson and John Johnson, have set up a dance-hall business for young adults and kids that probably won’t earn them big dollars. But even in business, the payoff can be in good karma.
When you walk into Electric Avenue, located at Market and K Street in Aberdeen, the rap music beat and the electric amps are so powerful they shake your body in time to the music. You’ll see young people rap dancing. It looks like high-impact aerobics gone crazy.
Their Friday and Saturday night dances are strictly for youth, 15-20 years old.
“We’ve got too many 16 and 17 year old girls hanging out here, we don’t need 21-year-old guys going out to buy the girls beer,” Davis says.
Police drop in now and then and are welcomed. Parents are encouraged to come for a look but not to stay. It’s a big party for youth only.
Ear plugs are provided for visiting parents.
June 16, 1991
Richard Juntunen, a Ocosta High School senior-to-be, won the You Never Know Until You Tri mini-triathlon for the second straight year yesterday.
Juntunen negotiated the half-mile swim, five-mile bike ride and three-mile run in a total of 44 minutes, 11 seconds, knocking a full minute off the previous mark.
A former Hoquiam cheerleader was the women’s over-all winner at 58 minutes, 44 seconds.
Jan Bezzo Beglaue, a 1974 Hoquiam High School grad now living in Mukilteo, won the women’s event in her first-ever triathlon. “I’ve run some 10Ks,” Beglaue, who also was on the swimming and tennis teams at HHS, said.
June 17, 1991
People took a lot of chances in Aberdeen, last year, spending $6.6 million on various forms of legalized gambling and the City Council is considering boosting gambling taxes to help make up a pending budget shortfall triggered by a declining economy.
Thirty establishments — mostly taverns — are licensed to offer punchboards and pull tab games in Aberdeen. The city taxes them at 3.5 percent. Seven places offer bingo which is taxed at 7.5 percent. Two establishments — Mac’s Tavern and the Nordic Inn — offer card games. Players “rent” the tables and set their own limits. The rental income is taxed as 12.5 percent.
At current rates, Aberdeen expects to collect about $220,000 this year. By imposing the state-allowed maximum tax of 5 percent for punchboards and pull tabs, 10 percent on bingo, and 20 percent on card games, the city would realize an additional $90,000 per year.
June 18, 1991
Cheri Love, a Hoquiam High School junior, has been selected as one of 15 students to go to Japan July 6-18 as part of the “Leaders of Today Meet the Leaders of Tomorrow” Presidential Classroom program.
The group will visit the cities of Toyko, Kyoto and Osaka and tour various companies such as Nissan. They will also go to the U.S. Embassy, the National Women’s Education Center, a high school and the Japanese broadcasting center, NHK.
The students will stay in a few hotels but will spend some time with host families as well. they have been instructed to not wear anything “too showy,” and the girls cannot wear pants or split skirts.
June 19, 1991
Trisha Brown, the 1954 graduate of Aberdeen High School who has won acclaim as a pioneer of modern dance, is the recipient of a $325,000 MacArthur Fellowship “genius” grant.
As one of 21 recipients of the fellowships, Brown will receive the grant over the next five years to do any kind of creative work she chooses.
Brown, 54, currently on tour with her company in New York state, was cited for her work with “everyday movements and gestures” … reduced in their simplest parts and extended in distinctive, loose-limbed, fluid and intricate ways.”
When her company danced in Seattle in 1985, Brown said, “I may be the only choreographer in history who dug a limit of razor clams before school in the morning, providing there was an exceptionally low tide.”
For a trio of Harbor youths who seldom stray beyond the Northwest, discussing an upcoming trip to the Soviet Union stirs up their spirit for adventure.
Tom Messing from North Beach High School, Bryan Peirsol from Wishkah Valley High — both to be seniors next fall — and Oscar Bramstedt, who just graduated from Aberdeen High School, will take part this summer in the People to People Science Youth Exchange.
They will stop over for a short visit in Washington, D.C. before flying to the Soviet Union along with 250 other students from around the country involved in the exchange program.
Messing and Bramstedt will study aerospace technology and Peirsol will study physics at some of the most advanced science centers in the Moscow area.
Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom, Editorial Assistant at The Daily World. You can contact her at karen.barkstrom@thedailyworld.com or call her at 360-537-3925.
