75 years ago
April 13, 1944
County commissioners in Montesano dealt a stiff blow to rural roadhouses yesterday with passage of an ordinance requiring blanket 1 o’clock closure, $150 county license fees for clubs and maintenance of a deputized matron during all public dances.
It gives commissioners the right to suspend any license upon violation of its privileges, with a fine of $100 or 30 days in jail for failing to comply with terms of the ordinance.
Heretofore, most roadhouses have operated under a state club charter, and have remained open as late as 3 to 4 o’clock in the morning. The ordinance provides that dance music shall cease at 1 o’clock but that clubs, dance cafe or cabarets may serve meals or food to patrols after that hour.
April 14, 1944
The crab fishing boat Donna, operated by Edwin Skorondal, former Aberdeen councilman and for many years mechanical superintendent of the Aberdeen World, capsized on the Willapa Harbor bar in a rough sea early last night and Skrondal’s fate and that of his two crewmen, Gerald Betts, Copalis, and Clinton Johnson, Hoquiam, was dark this afternoon.
A report received by the Aberdeen Coast Guard station late today said that one of the three men who had been on a life-raft or piece of flotsam about a half mile from shore off Ocean Park, near the Columbia river, had attempted to swim ashore and was picked up unconscious on the beach. Attempts were being made to resuscitate him, the report said.
50 years ago
April 13, 1969
“In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as something shocking, now heaven knows — Anything goes!”
Cole Porter penned that popular lyric more than 30 years ago. But it isn’t the least bit outdated. Today, however, there’s no glimpsing about it.
The miniskirt revolution is in full swing, and the straitlaced citizens who found the Flappers’ stockings shocking, would flip their wigs over the hemlines of the swinging Sixties.
“We’ve had our problems with mini-skirts,” said Donald Spencer, principal of Hoquiam High School. “We had to send a couple of girls home because their skirts were so short it was in poor taste. But it’s hard to fight fashion.”
Weatherwax Principal David Roberts agreed: “It is hard to fight fashion, but when a skirt is so short that it becomes a classroom distraction you’ve got to take some action.”
April 14, 1969
The good old name of Brooklyn, Wash. will no longer be gracing postal cancellations after May 16.
The post office is going out of business.
The post office departments reveals that at the present time only 29 families are receiving mail through the office, and that five other families are receiving mail by Star Route carrier.
Revenues from the Brooklyn post office in 1968 totaled $1,160. The minimum cost of operating the office is estimated at $3,850.
25 years ago
April 13, 1994
More than 200 Harborites and a former television actress crammed into one of the largest town meetings in Montesano history Tuesday night and told the state where it can stick its proposed prison.
“Take it someplace else! Put it in a desolate area! We don’t want it!” said one woman, speaking for the often hostile crowd.
The meeting came the day after the state announced that Grays Harbor is one of three finalists for a 1,936-bed prison for men. The other sites are at Grandview in the Yakima Valley and Goldenview in the Columbia Gorge.
April 14, 1994
In cruel rock’n’roll irony, sales of Nirvana tapes and CDs have soared locally and nationally in the wake of singer Kurt Cobain’s violent suicide last week.
“It seems people of all ages are stopping in and buying (Nirvana taped and CDs) to see what the music was all about,” said Dion Steiner, district manager at Disc Jockey music store in Aberdeen.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the SouthShore Mall store had sold all of its Nirvana inventory which included “Bleach” and “Incesticide” as well as the chart-toppers “Nevermind” and “In Utero.”
Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom
