75 years ago

April 1, 1944

An enticing package resembling a slab of bacon and another wrapped to look like a ham caused near panic on the street in front of the Nu-Way Food Stores, 901 East Second street this morning as people “bit” on one of the most time-worn gags of April Fool pranksters.

Several delivery trucks halted busy Saturday traffic as they stopped to see if they had lost parcels. Some 60 to 70 cars also stopped so that over-optimistic passengers might examine the packages.

Those who dreamed fondly of saving some precious red stamps found only — rocks.

50 years ago

April 1, 1969

E.G. (Mike) Savola has been in the net-making business for ten years.

Savola, a long-time veteran of the fishing business on the Harbor (once a buyer and operator of the old Paragon Packing Plant in Hoquiam), bought the former Carey and Bachman Marine Store in Hoquiam in 1952 selling all manner of marine supplies.

He started manufacturing netting in 1959 primarily for the fishing trade but now his company (Harbor Net and Twine, Inc.) makes nets for trucking, sports and decorative uses as well.

It takes an average of 16 hours to make a gillnet, using from three- to 12-ply cord. Gillnets average a depth of about 250 stretched fathoms (a fathom is six feet), although some have been made 500 fathoms deep — and the company once made one 1,000 stretched fathoms deep, when it was still legal to use a net that deep.

25 years ago

April 1, 1994

Jim Sawin, principal at McDermoth School in Aberdeen, was a good sport today as he cleaned crumpled newspapers out of his office. His faculty spent about four hours Thursday night filling the office to the ceiling as an April Fool’s prank.

Sawin wasn’t the only victim.

Bill O’Donnell, principal at A.J. West, discovered that his large collection of stuffed monkeys had been hidden throughout the school.

Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom