125 years ago
Jan. 8, 1892
To those people and newspapers who are still persistently quibbling over the late city election in Montesano, wouldn’t it be just as well to take a little rest before the next campaign, and give the people a “rest,” too. This suggestion is gratis.
• • •
This paper will not allow its columns to be prostituted with the “stuff and nonsense” that is appearing in some of its contemporaries, neither do any of the slurs against this paper or some of the people of this city, merit any refutation. Being contemptible, the statements will be treated with silent contempt.
100 years ago
Jan. 5, 1917
Six packages containing half a gallon of whiskey each and a package containing clothes were stolen from the Wells-Fargo Express Co. office in the Union Depot in Montesano Wednesday night. The burglar or burglars gained access to the station by breaking a window pane with a rock and slipping the lock on the window. The operation was attended with casualties, however, for the man cut his hand on the broken glass and left bloody finger marks on the window sill. The big safe in the office was not disturbed and a number of other express parcels were not molested, the robber evidently being merely thirsty and in need of pants, as he was content with a big supply of wet goods and a pair of new trousers.
The whiskey stolen comprised shipments for six different men sent here under legal permits issued by the auditor’s office. The consignees will suffer bitter disappointment when they go to claim their packages, and to make the matter more serious they will be unable to secure another permit until the expiration of the allotted 20 days. The loss of the shipments by theft does not change the status of the ones who secured the permits from the auditor and they are barred until the time limit expires.
Robbing the Montesano O.-W. and Milwaukee union station seems to be a favorite pastime for wanderers, as the depot has been broken into numerous times since its erection. No money is ever kept there over night but the place in ransacked every now and then by some tourist who thinks the isolated position makes it easy picking.
75 years ago
Jan. 8, 1942
One former Montesano man had a front seat for one of the episodes of the war. He is Jack Nepple, who is working in the office of a mine on the northern California coast.
On a recent trip to Seattle he told friends that while looking out of his office window he saw an American tanker torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.
“The last I saw of the tanker, she was heading toward the shore with her note down,” he said. “Then an American cruiser and destroyer came high tailing down the ocean. Whether they got the sub, of course I don’t know. Anyhow it brought the fact of the war awfully close to us there.”
50 years ago
Jan. 5, 1966
Continuing their push to discourage light-breaking, car-prowling vandalism in Montesano, city police Tuesday apprehended two more juveniles, bringing their total to six for the past two weeks.
Chief Bruce Curtright, who “can’t understand why these things happen,” said additional arrests are expected before the investigation is completed. “All names will be turned over to the county juvenile authorities,” he promised.
Regarding the costly breakage of street lights, particularly in the northeast section near the high school, Officer Charles Mero said a half-dozen boys have been questioned. “They admitted throwing rocks at the globes, but claim they missed,” Mero reported.
According to the officer, the youngsters and their parents are being contacted together in hopes of determining who is at fault and what should be done about it.
The pair picked up Tuesday admitted car-prowling, “mainly looking for liquor,” Curtright said. The quartet apprehended last week collected a variety of items — and threw many of them along the roadway from here to the beach.
The chief said arrests anticipated by week’s end should clear up the recent rash of street light-breaking.
25 years ago
Jan. 2, 1992
There’s no telling how many items of business crossed Ulysses S. Grant’s desk on August 10, 1874. Being president, it’s safe to bet there were quiet a few. But among the congressional bills, appointments, proclamations and whatever else there may have been, one thing is sure. The president picked up his pen and signed his name onto a one by two foot homesteading deed for C. Combes, who lived near Malone in what is now eastern Grays Harbor, seven miles north of Oakville.
The deed is still hanging on the wall in the office of Combes’ great-great grandson, Jay Gordon, who is still on the land, raising corn, milking cows and harvesting wheat.
It’s a lot of work for the sixth generation farmer, one of the oldest families in the area. Jay used to help his late granddad with the chores, but was raised in the city. He got a dairy science degree in Oregon and with his Californian born wife Susan, who runs a greenhouse on the farm, they have three children and oversee the work of four employees who live in homes on the farm.
There are a lot of things Jay likes about farming. For example, “Standing in a corn field on the first day of June when it’s about seventy degrees. I’ve got 200 acres of corn coming up, and there’s that neon. They invented neon green when they saw corn growing in June. You look down and the sun’s coming up and there this row of neon green corn plants sprouting. There’s the possibility of a lot of money from this crop you’ve planted. I’m outside and some poor slob is stuck in an office.”
10 years ago
Jan. 4, 2007
A North River man is taking his feud with state and local officials over shoreline setbacks all the way to the state Supreme Court in an effort to keep an elaborate, wraparound, two-level deck he built without permits.
In a six-page opinion published Dec. 4, the state Court of Appeals for Division II upheld the state Department of Ecology and the state Shoreline Hearings Board. The state ruled that Jack Thompson Jr.’s deck was too close to the shoreline because it came within 50 feet of the “ordinary high-water mark” of the North River. It would have to come out, state officials said, but they would grant him a variance for a set of exterior stairs to reach the residence over the garage.
Thompson, a construction contractor, appealed to Superior Court, and then to the state Court of Appeals.
Even though he’s lost twice on appeal, he says he hopes the state Supreme Court will hear his case because he wants to test a system that seems to give only the bureaucrats at Ecology authority to survey shorelines. Fueling his resolve is residual frustration at Grays Harbor County and Ecology staff, who he says “poisoned” the case after it had been approved by the Grays Harbor Planning Commissioner.
“I think they should have just forwarded the decision,” Thompson said, explaining that he thinks Ecology was prompted to take a closer look when the county’s staff report was also included in the packet sent to Olympia.
Planning &Building Director Brian Shea said the staff followed the usual procedures when the case was forwarded to the state.
Ecology officials say they have not been formally notified that Thompson intends to appeal, but since the case might still be under litigation, spokeswoman Kim Schmanke said the agency was declining to comment.
