Traveling back in time: this day in Bonners Ferry history

History for December 15th, 2016

100 Year EASTPORT – Mrs. Leveque, of Kingsgate, had a very narrow escape from drowning last Friday afternoon. She went down to the river for a pail of water and walked out on the ice to a hole made for dipping up water. In some manner her feet slipped as she neared the hole and she went in. The water being very swift, the lower part of her body was drawn under the ice and she was unable to extricate herself. By mere chance she managed to get a hold on the ice and held on until her cries for help brought assistance. Her arms were badly bruised but aside from this she suffered no ill effects from her accident. C.C. Ames brought down a six-point deer near Copeland Thursday. After shooting the deer he tied a buckskin string over its antlers and started to drag it home. After dragging it about 500 yards, it jumped up and ran off. Ames later killed the deer in front of the Copeland tie camp. The county commissioners have sent for a man to set up the new rock crusher recently bought by the county and city of Bonners Ferry. As soon as it is set up the machine will be given a try-out. Copeland – P.J. Jennings and J.C. Watson, Spokane mining men, are spending a few weeks with L.M. Parker on the Dora mining claim. Jennings, Watson and Parker are jointly interested in the Dora and are preparing to ship a car of ore in the near future. The Dora is a gold proposition.

50 Year Bonners Ferry’s first “Junior Miss” will be crowned Friday night at the high school in special ceremonies during half-time of the Bonners-Post Falls basketball game. Six young ladies, all high school seniors, are competing for the title. They are Diane Zenier, Sue Hanson, Robin Gross, Sue Flory, Marilyn Daniels and Arden Bauman. Cash deposits from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses through Nov. 30 totaled $153,610.55. Only resident hunting license sales were down somewhat from last year. Seen and Heard….Mrs. Dick Hollenbeck having an “interesting” evening in chaperoning a busload of eighth graders to a game in Troy. The Bonners Ferry Badgers have a clean record of four straight wins in as many games at this early point in the season, after adding two more notches to there jerseys with wins last weekend against Creston and Kootenai. In all four games played to date, the Badgers have been strong on rebounding, defense is good and improving, and shooting has been exceptionally good, both from the field and at the free throw line. It was reported this week that a representative of the Idaho Department of Employment will be in Bonners Ferry each Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Employment service was discontinued completely here earlier in the year and protests were made by the local chamber of commerce to the State office in Boise, finally resulting in the one-day per week service now in effect.

15 Year After having to quickly relocate from the Armory to the Fairgrounds for security reasons stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks, the Festival of trees still managed to not only pull off a magnificent Christmas festival. It also brought in a staggering $36,000 from all auction-able items, which included wreaths, decorated Christmas trees as well as other items. What began with one man spending time with a few elementary school students over four years ago has exploded into a county wide mentoring program with over 40 students and 25 mentors. Bullwinkle’s been cuffed, stuffed and is on his way to a new home in the country. That was the final radio call from Bonners Ferry Deputy Police Chief Rick Alonzo after officers spent a couple hours chasing and trying to corner a young bull moose last Thursday afternoon near Valley View Elementary school. To show you how smart the Bonners Ferry High School academic decathlon team is, hold onto your thinking caps and all those logarithm trick questions you’ve been saving up. They only blew away their nearest worthy opponent last weekend by out-testing both Sandpoint High and Priest River High by a mere 2,255 points. Divided into three divisions, the students were tested in 10 academic areas. Decathlon champ smarties were Ben Tye, Tim Ridgely, A.J. Wolff, Richard Tice, Baird Chrisman, Jamie Cox, Laci Click, Sarah Kopf, Emily Eberly and Elaine Cox. Knowing that changes and growth are inevitable, the city of Bonners Ferry exercised its growing pains and finally got bigger. After almost a year of starts and stops and a snafu that found Bonners Ferry in non-compliance of a 26-year old land use planning act, the city gave the Marx subdivision annexation its stamp of approval with the third and final reading of the ordinance Dec. 4.