85 YEARS AGO
August 19, 1940
Lavish praise was accorded the fourth and largest Aberdeen World demonstration home this weekend when 1,658 persons visited the new house of Mr. and Mrs. Orville Wiseman on Bel Aire.
Many who visited and are contemplating building expressed particular interest in a colored architect’s picture by Ben K. Weatherwax, who designed the house. This picture was prepared before construction began and showed an exact likeness to the completed house.
Visitors familiar with the steep slope of the lots were surprised over what can be done with modern landscaping and architecture. They found large and level terraces about the home, taking advantage of the sweeping view of the city, harbor and Chehalis valley.
August 20, 1940
Orders to disband the Grays Harbor Marine Corps were received today by John W. Clark, the unit’s commanding officer. The unit’s equipment and name, Company B, are to be transferred to Seattle, according to a letter Clark received from battalion headquarters.
The abandonment and transfer orders came like a “bombshell” to officers of the Harbor corps.
The local men at this summer’s annual maneuvers won the unofficial title of the “best reserve unit in the United States” when they out-shot, out-maneuvered and otherwise demonstrated their superiority over other groups at the camp. The corps is nine years old.
August 21, 1940
Army recruiting records were shattered here yesterday when Recruiting Officer I.R.A. Pirtle accepted five Harbor youths and sent them to Fort Lewis for formal enlistment. Two of the youths are brothers, Paul and Leslie Wisdom of Montesano joining the army the same day for service together with the new 78th coast artillery at March field, an anti-aircraft outfit. Clifford Black of Montesano joined for the same service. John E. Tuttle, Aberdeen was accepted for the air corps at Moffett Field, known among recruits as “Little Aberdeen” because of the number of Harborites serving there.
Less than an hour before the train bearing these men was scheduled to leave, Clarence E. Pickett, Moclips, drove up to the city hall and said he wanted to go into the air corps at March Field.
• It may be called softball but that’s as far as the “soft” part goes. The casualty list for the Aberdeen leagues this season includes: Kearney Clark, broken wrist; Gene Waara, broken foot; Bus Travis, fractured ankle.
August 22, 1940
Californian visitors have declared the Olympic mountains as the best vacation land and its streams as a fisherman’s paradise, R.E. Voorhies, Quinault packer and guide, said today.
A San Francisco party of confirmed fly fishermen said there is no place which compares with the trout streams in the Olympics. The party, spent five days fishing the north fork of the Quinault and Elwah rivers. They caught 27 fish one day.
Nearly 15 tons of tuna were delivered yesterday and this morning by two trollers to the fishermen’s cooperative station in Westport. Both trollers made their catches off Willapa Harbor about four hours from Grays Harbor, Westport fishermen said today.
August 23, 1940
An iron lung purchased only two days ago by the Grays Harbor Legion posts was rushed to Tacoma today for use on an Elma boy suddenly stricken withe infantile paralysis.
The boy is Richard Anderson, 12, son of Dr. Anderson, the superintendent of Oakhurst sanatorium.
60 YEARS AGO
August 19, 1965
John E. Eko, an English teacher with Ocosta Consolidated Schools, was among a group of 50 Northwest teachers and librarians trained this summer as “educational media specialists” at an eight-week institute being conducted in Corvalis, Ore. by Oregon’s Division of Continuing Education. The class covered the use of educational media — films, television, radio, tape recordings and other graphic teaching aids.
August 20, 1965
It took 10 minutes last night to demolish a building that has been a Hoquiam landmark for 75 years.
R.W. Rhine, demolishing buildings in the urban renewal project area, started on the wood structure at 816 J. St., last used for a fire insurance and bookkeeping establishment. The structure was constructed by William Rockwell in 1890 as a fire engine house at a cost of $1,250. On Sept. 23 of that year, the building was declared a meeting place for city government. The city sold the building in the early 1900s and moved into a city hall where the old J.C. Penney building at 7th and J. streets is located now.
August 21, 1965
“To be perfectly honest,” said Lorne Greene recently, “I can’t indulge in griping sessions (about playing the same role year in and year out) because for me they’d be completely phony. The truth is I can still play Ben Cartwright with enthusiasm. … We have a happy set. The relationship between Hoss, Little Joe and me has developed into a warm closely knit one.
“And I’m lucky that the success of ‘Bonanza’ has opened a continuing series of doors to me, each offering another challenge or a very satisfying outlet for one more facet of my makeup.”
August 23, 1965
If they are as funny on television as they are on a night club floor, then the Smothers Brothers should be television’s freshest comedy team since Martin and Lewis.
Tom and Dick Smothers are basically folk singers but though they sing the ethnic songs like pros, they just use music as an excuse for comedy.
Dick, in the tradition of comedy teams, is the straight man of the act. Tom is the bewildered one who plays guitar and blinks out at the world in tortured confusion.
Both brothers report that the question most frequently asked them is: Is Smothers really your name?
It is. They are the sons of a West Pointer who survived the Bataan death march only to die on a World War II prison ship.
35 YEARS AGO
August 19, 1990
Capt. David Karl Anderson, a Hoquiam native, was honored at a retirement ceremony July 27 on board the Ex-USS Hornet at Bremerton. Anderson, who served for 30 years in the Navy, is the son of Stanley and Jeannette Anderson, now residing in Neilton. His sister, Karen Creviston, lives in Quinault.
A graduate of Lake Quinault High School and the University of Washington, Anderson joined the Navy in 1960. He served as Supply Officer at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard since August 1984, longer than any other Supply Corps Officer in the 100-year history of the shipyard.
August 20, 1990
This time Keith Liedes didn’t let the big one get away.
Frequently a challenger but never before a champion in this event, the young Harbor native closed strongly to win the 32nd Annual Grays Harbor Pro-Am Golf Tournament Sunday at Grays Harbor Country Club.
Birdieing two of his final five holes, Liedes finished with a second round 70, a 36-hole total of two-under part 138 and a two-stroke margin on three pros: Willapa Harbor’s Louie Runge, Ocean Shores’ John Reeves and Chris Repass of Port Angeles.
August 21, 1990
The owner of the Brooklyn Tavern — the historic watering hole that burned down last month — is planning on building a new tavern over the ashes of the first.
Ray Damitio of Tenino said the second Brooklyn Tavern will be as similar to the original as he can make it, complete with a “snoose creek.”
The Port of Grays Harbor’s long push for diversified cargoes is finally yielding some results, thanks in part to the advent of a deeper draft.
In September, a large Norwegian ship will call here to pick up a load of aluminum, along with forest products bound for Japan, Port officials announced Monday.
August 22, 1990
A time warp will occur at the North Beach this weekend. At least that’s the effect organizers of the Back to the Beach Rod Run hope to create. As many of 300 street rods are expected to participate in the event, which is co-sponsored by the Midnight Cruizers car club and the Ocean Shores Chamber of Commerce.
On Friday, guys are encouraged to do their best “Fonzie” impression, and dolls are urged to pull out their old saddle shoes and bobby socks. They’ll feel right at home. The Sand Castle Drive-In will be decorated to rival Arnolds, the favorite hang out in those Happy Days on the television sit-com. They’ll be offering 59-cent hamburgers and 10-cent soft drinks.
There’ll be not one, but two tall ships at dockside in Aberdeen, when the HMS Bounty pulls up alongside the Lady Washington tomorrow.
The three-masted, 169-foot Bounty is making Grays Harbor its 13th port on a 20-city tour of the West Coast. It was built for the 1962 movie “Mutiny on the Bounty” starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard.
August 23, 1990
The situation in the Middle East is fast becoming a family affair for Don and Carol Martin of Hoquiam.
“I think everything is going to be OK,” said Carol, maintaining a calm smile even though the escalating tension has enveloped members of her family. Her husband who works for Lamb-Grays Harbor Co. in Hoquiam is also doing his best not to fret.
Like a number of parents of the Harbor, the Martins are concerned about their oldest son, Jimmy, a member of the U.S. Army Airbourne based in Fort Campbell in Kentucky. The 22-year-old specialist is packed and ready to head to Saudi Arabia at a moment’s notice.
Their younger son, David, 19, is signing up for the Army reserves in a few weeks.
Meanwhile, Don’s brother Harold, an employee of an Iraq-based natural gas firm, has been in the Middle East since the middle of May and is now scrambling to find a way out.
Charlie Randolph, who was principal of Aberdeen High School for 10 years, died of a massive heart attack this morning. He was 61.
Randolph, a strong-willed man with a work ethic to match, died at Grays Harbor Community Hospital. He had been suffering from heart problems for nearly three years, said his wife, Viola.
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.
