In 1992, Morck manager has dreams of restoring it to respectability

From the archives of The Daily World

75 years ago

Jan. 24, 1942

Mrs. Adele Allen Oliver, former county school superintendent, and her son, Allen, left today for Seattle to board a plane for Mobile, Alabama, to take charge of funeral services for another son, Ensign Karl Oliver, who lost his life with seven others yesterday when a navy plane plunged into the Atlantic ocean off Oregon Inlet, North Carolina.

Ensign Oliver was graduated from Hoquiam High School in 1933 and from Washington State college in 1938. He was business manager of the Chinook, W.S.C. annual, his last year there. After college graduation he served a year as second lieutenant with the 15th infantry at Fort Lewis. He then joined the naval air corps and trained at Sand Point and Pensacola. He entered regular service in January, 1940 and received his commission in December of that year.

Jan. 25, 1942

Sunday, no newspaper published

50 years ago

Jan. 24, 1967

A dog catcher will be hired as soon as possible by the City of Aberdeen in order to get an effective animal control program into action. Chief of Police David Auer said he is taking applications for the job of animal control officer, another way of saying dog catcher.

Things are going to be tough all over for owners of dogs who do not have them licensed when the dog catcher is put into harness.

License fees are $2 for male or spayed female or $3 for an unspayed female.

Jan. 25, 1967

Lamb-Grays Harbor will lay off more than 42 employes during the next several weeks, it was announced today by a company spokesman.

“Although the prospective customer list of companies that have committed themselves for Lamb’s equipment remains excellent, everyone is holding off orders until the economic situation clears,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman blamed the situation on high interest rates, loss of investment tax credit and the six per cent income sur-tax proposed in the state of the union address by the President.

25 years ago

Jan. 24, 1992

As Johnny Green watched from a lawn chair outside his little yellow house perched on the levee in Hoquiam, a hardy group of well-wishers braved a storm Thursday to cut a pink ribbon in his honor.

The levee has been renamed the Johnny Green Riverside Dike after the charming Swede who has lived there for years.

“I didn’t know I had so many friends,” Johnny said when the group approached. He wasn’t feeling up to snuff but enjoyed showing off his home and the 92-year-old invited everyone to come back and visit.

“T’anks for comin’ to visit the ol’ plug,” he said.

Jan. 25, 1992

• Many fondly recall their high school formal in the Star Room, dinner at the Coach House, its deluxe restaurant, or a drink in the Highlander Room which specialized in single-malt Scotches.

Some spent their honeymoon in Aberdeen’s five-story grand hotel. But today, most wouldn’t cross the threshold.

The Morck is a dingy reminder of the changing face of America’s downtown.

Over the years, the honeymoon suite where optimistic couples began their lives became home for those on the hazy edge of society. When the new manager, Vern Hintergardt, took over last September, he evicted the dealers and hookers.

With no residential treatment program here, many of the Harbor’s mentally ill gravitated toward the low-rent rooms in the former hotel, said Ken Taylor, director of Evergreen Counseling Center in Hoquiam

Hintergardt says he has dreams of restoring the Morck to respectability, maybe even reopening the ballroom for community events, but a lack of finances is slowing his progress.

• Four Grays Harbor Century 21 salespeople will receive top international honors for ringing up real estate sales of more than $5 million each last year, according to Century 21 broker Thorn Ward.

Jack Elgin and Maria Hutchinson of the Ocean Shores branch and Albert J. Druzianich and Jim Boyd of the Aberdeen office will be given Centurian awards during ceremonies at the convention in San Francisco in March.

Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom