85 YEARS AGO
May 11, 1940
On edge after a final meal of clam tidbits, eight thoroughbred South Beach deep sea crabs today were ready for the starting gun of a race tonight to decide whether Tokeland or Westport has the best crabs on the beach.
A sand course with a seaweed finish line was completed in the Grayland community hall where the crustaceans will compete during the Twin Harbors Beach club’s annual “Days of ‘49” celebration.
Crab Louie is the favorite, followed closely by Bull Montana and Tiny Taylor. Most of the anti-Crab Louie betters were counting on his terrible temper to throw the race into turmoil, thereby allowing one of the long shots to claw home as the winner.
May 14, 1940
Grays Harbor authorities today sought three men who last night entered the Wigwam tavern north of Hoquiam, forced the proprietor, Louis Christensen, to accompany them in their car to near Brady and then released him after taking his wallet, watch and keys.
If caught the three face possible kidnap as well as armed robbery charges.
May 15, 1940
The old Westport Hotel, once the most popular stopping place on Grays Harbor’s Riviera, soon will echo again with the comforting sounds of snoozing travelers as it did almost a half century ago.
The structure, built in 1890 and now Westport’s oldest building, has been purchased from Mrs. Nellie Yana by Claud Messick, salesman for the Braley Motor Company, who has completely remodeled it and will open in again as a hotel in about a week.
May 16, 1940
Grays Harbor Junior College hikers trekked to Westport Sunday afternoon for a day of softball, wiener roasting and target practice with the bow and arrow. In the evening after a camp fire and a marshmallow roast, the club skated at Harms rink. The trip was made in a open-air truck.
May 17, 1940
France ordered every soldier to fight “to the death” today in a desperate allied battle to halt the German offensive sweeping across Belgium and into France.
German mechanized columns, protected by a vast bombing fleet and leading massed infantry assaults, slammed through the Maginot line defenses on a broad front into northern France, probably within 70 miles from Paris.
• The Hugh Bailey Service, Aberdeen’s newest and one of its most modern auto supply stores, officially opened business today in a recently completed “streamline” styled building on North Broadway, between Market and First streets. The concern is owned by Hugh and Glenn Bailey, veteran Aberdeen automobile and parts experts.
60 YEARS AGO
May 11, 1965
The Army’s newest main battle tank, the M-60, will be one of hundreds of pieces of military equipment open to visitors between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday during Armed Forces Day at Fort Lewis. Everything from a giant Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster to a .45 caliber pistol will be on exhibit. Rides will be given in armored personnel carriers — the tracked, box-shaped vehicles used to carry infantrymen into combat.
May 12, 1965
The Driftwood Players last night elected Richard Lane as president for the coming year.
Lane, who succeeds Paul Miller as head of the group, is one of the remaining five founders of Driftwood players and was an original trustee.
The Aberdeen Bobcats have apparently snapped out of their slump.
For the second straight game, the Cats put together good pitching and sharp hitting as they jumped back into contention for the Northern Division pennant with a 6-1 victory over R.A. Long.
John Augustine, Mike Gilpin and Randy Hancock singled to open the Aberdeen second and came around as the Jacks erred on balls hit by Denny Marxen, Mike Hoonan and Don Mehlhoff.
May 13, 1965
The typical American worker must now earn $123 a week to provide a modest but adequate living for a family of four. That was the conclusion drawn Wednesday by the AFL-CIO in its revision of the Labor Department’s family budget for city workers for 1959.
The budget provides for less than one egg per person a day, one suit every two years for the man of the house and 3.5 dresses a year for the housewife.
May 15, 1965
From school books to hospital beds in three months.
That’s how quickly the U.S. military command has transformed the American community school outside Tan Son Nhut Airbase near Saigon into the third army field hospital.
Commander of the new 100-bed hospital is Major Sterling Muntz. Working as his right hand is Edith Nuttall, formerly of Montesano with her staff of six pretty female nurses and five male nurses.
35 YEARS AGO
May 11, 1990
Jenee Bearden has been promoted to operations manager at Durney Travel Agency, which has offices in Aberdeen and Hoquiam. She holds a Certified Travel Counselor degree from the Institute of Certified Travel Counselors in Wellesly, Mass.
She has been with the Durney agency since 1981. In her new position she will be in charge of training of the staff, of quality control and of improving the systems within the company.
Hero sandwiches were on the menu as Persian Gulf Veteran Army Sp. 4 Walt Coffin was given a hero’s welcome this week by Cindy Moore’s fifth grade class at Central Park School. Coffin and the students exchanged letters during his six months in the Gulf. The graduate of Grace Assembly Christian Academy is the son of Paul and Alice Coffin.
May 12, 1990
Montesano’s Connie Twidwell tossed a three-hitter to hurl her team past Olympic, 5-2, in a previously unreported Black Hills League fast pitch game Friday.
Twidwell fanned five batters and didn’t allow a walk.
Lost all night in deep woods near Charley Creek, three, cold, weary but undaunted Cosmopolis youngsters came home to welcome breakfasts this morning just as a group of men prepared to resume a hunt for them.
Raymond Green, 12, his brother Robert, 10, and Tom Rastler, 12, had gone on a bark peeling expedition early Sunday morning and became lost, they said, in the forest southwest of the creek.
Overtaken by night, they found only two matches among them, but with the first managed to build a fire. By turns they slept, one remaining awake to fend off the cold and dark with a cheery blaze.
Dawn found them tramping along again. Finally they heard the sound of cars passing on the Raymond-Cosmopolis road, broke through the brush onto the highway and wearily walked home.
A Westport crab named Bull Montana technically won the South Beach racing championship Saturday night when two of Tokeland’s entries, Crab Louie and Blitzkrieg, quit running for the greater fun of fighting.
Crab Louie thereby bore out the worst fear of his backers — that his vicious temper would nullify his great speed.
Tokelanders refused to admit that the race had demonstrated superiority of Westport crabs.
They charged that Bull Montana ran so well only because he was scared so much by Crab Louie.
May 13, 1990
The principal at Miller Junior High School in Aberdeen Jerry Salstrom has been honored as one of the top five principals in the state.
The Washington Award for Excellence in Education was awarded last week to the Aberdeen administrator.
Superintendent Dick Voege nominated Salstrom for the honor, declaring that “the school has become truly excellent.”
“Salstrom and his staff use an imaginative variety of techniques to help adolescents become more confident, self reliant and successful,” said Voege. It’s just a credit to the whole staff.”
May 14, 1990
Calls for paramedics in Aberdeen are coming in faster than ever — a record 2,138 last year. It’s also costing more than ever to keep the ambulances and aging fire rigs repaired and ready to roll — $40,000 this year.
Nevertheless, the Aberdeen Fire Department yesterday began trying to do more with less.
It is the first department to absorb cutbacks as the city faces an estimated $457,000 revenue shortfall in the wake of the national recession and timber set-asides for the spotted owl.
May 15, 1990
Two weeks ago there was a car fire in Central Park, which has a volunteer fire department, and not a single volunteer showed up.
Not even the toughest professional firefighters in Aberdeen said an unkind word; they know the demands on volunteer firefighters are approaching the impossible.
Besides, Central Park is already well along in trying to solve its problems. It will mean higher property taxes, but by July 1, the department plans to have a paid professional fire chief at a salary that may be as high as $40,800.
“I guess the event that happened with the car fire was something I always dreaded, and I had hoped we would have a paid person on staff by this time,” said John Sliva, the Central Park department’s volunteer chief.
May 16, 1990
Aberdeen’s South Side fire station won’t be closed — at least not for now and not until there’s a lot more discussion.
Saying he lives on the South Side, too, Mayor O’Dean Williamson has rescinded budget cutbacks ordered Monday by Fire Chief Lowell Killen.
The whole idea that a nursing home, schools, playfields, the college and a major shopping center would all be isolated at times when the Chehalis River Bridge goes up made him too nervous.
The mayor said he’s just too uncomfortable with the decision to let it rest until Killen returns next week from vacation.
The Lady Grizzly softball team rallied for six runs in the bottom of the seventh to pull out a 10-9 victory over Aberdeen yesterday. Climaxing the rally was Kami Graham’s two-out fly ball that was dropped in the outfield, plating Amy Bell with the final maker.
But it didn’t end that simply. According to Aberdeen’s scorebook, Bell’s run only tied the game at 10-all.
The HHS scorebook showed Aberdeen scoring seven runs in the second inning. Aberdeen’s book showed eight runs. A lengthy discussion produced no agreement. There-upon umpire Tanya Bowers ruled that since Hoquiam was the home team its book was official and the game was over – 10 to 9 Hoquiam.
May 17, 1990
Harborites are crying out for help. As the impact of the spotted owl controversy hits home in waves, the cries are becoming louder and more frequent.
“It’s a significant increase; there’s no question about it,” says Joe Mazzara, program manager of the Emergency Service program at Evergreen Counseling Center in Hoquiam.
“It’s getting bigger and bigger — that’s the scary thing,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot of hopelessness and what we call haplessness — a lack of pleasure and sense that things are beyond one’s control.
In April, the crisis line received 358 calls. That’s up 57 percent from April of 1989. Last year Evergreen employed 33 staff members. Today it as 47 employees and is looking for more.
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.
