Yesterdays

60 Years Ago

Oct. 5, 1951

A young housewife home alone with three young children up the North Fork took care of a large black bear accused of being a peeping Tom. Mrs. Jack Mathison was bathing her youngest child at their cabin on Whale Creek near the Canada border when she saw the bear looking in the window. After yelling to get the bear to leave, she picked up her husband's rifle and shot the bruin through the window.

Stoltze Land & Lumber Co. installed six mobile FM radio transmitters and receiving units in its trucks and at the company's main office on Half Moon Road. The goal is a safer and more efficient logging operation, especially with passing log trucks on narrow mountain roads and during the fire season.

50 Years Ago

Oct. 6, 1961

Minimum wage at the Anaconda Aluminum Co. smelter in Columbia Falls was raised from $2.37 an hour to $2.42, increasing the total annual payroll for the plant's 550 workers by $70,000. Pay raises accepted by the union ranged from 5 cents to 11 1/2 cents.

Residents in West Glacier were happy to learn they could now make long-distance calls without use of an operator. Perforated tape was used to record the numbers called and the date and length of the call for billing purposes. Direct long-distance calling was expected to be offered soon for residents in the Flathead Valley.

40 Years Ago

Oct. 1, 1971

President Richard Nixon flew in to Glacier Park International Airport en route to Anchorage, Alaska, where he would meet Emperor Hirohito, of Japan. Accompanying Nixon were Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and Montana Reps. Dick Shoup and John Melcher. Flathead County Sheriff Curtis Snyder estimated the crowd at the tarmac at up to 22,000 people.

In an editorial about the proposed boardwalk at Glacier National Park's Logan Pass, Hungry Horse News editor Mel Ruder said the big mistake was enlarging the Logan Pass parking lot and building a visitor center. A better site for the visitor center would have been Sun Point, overlooking St. Mary Lake, he said.

30 Years Ago

Oct. 1, 1981

Columbia Falls Postmaster Ted Andrew started locking the post office doors at 5:30 p.m. after two cases of vandalism one week earlier. One night, vandals punched in the fronts of 18 mail boxes and reached into the letter slot and removed mail. On the second night, vandals damaged eight more boxes and removed mail from the letter slot again, leaving it strewn across the floor. Post office doors had been left unlocked to 9 p.m.

Jay Crenshaw, a graduate student in wildlife biology, entertained a curious cougar while doing tree-stand analysis near the Apgar Lookout in Glacier National Park. The young mountain lion was drawn over and over again to the orange tape attached to the end of Crenshaw's 100-foot measuring tape. The cat lay down for the next two hours and watched Crenshaw as he plotted tree sizes before finally ambling off into the brush.

20 Years Ago

Oct. 3, 1991

Flathead Economic Development Corp. director Carol Daly told Flathead County commissioners that the former Columbia Falls Forest Products mill north of town could be converted into a facility for container shipping or a value-added wood products plant. She said people needed to work quickly because the current owner was in bankruptcy and needed to sell the site.

The final days of the Burlington Northern railroad depot in Columbia Falls were fast approaching after the Montana Public Service Commission ordered it closed on Sept. 23. The railroad company had requested the depot be closed back in March 1990. The Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce suggested turning the 40-year-old building into a museum.

10 Years Ago

Oct. 4, 2001

Lumber prices had fallen nearly 20 percent since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to managers at Plum Creek Timber Co. and Stoltze Land & Lumber Co. The biggest impact was on dimensional lumber for new construction.

With the Moose Fire dampened down by fall weather, an interagency Burned Area Emergency Restoration report estimated that treatment of the burned lands could run to more than $600,000. The affected area included 71,000 acres within a 96-mile perimeter. Soil erosion was a big concern, and some salvage logging was under consideration.