Traveling back in time: This day in Bonners Ferry history
100 Year
Last evening about 6 o’clock fire destroyed the house on the Island occupied by Will and James Poston and owned by their father, Chas. Poston. The fire is supposed to have started around a defective chimney up stairs. Most all the furniture was saved and it is understood a small insurance was carried. The building was a large two-story structure.
An action was filed Saturday asking for the annulment of the marriage of C.P. Green to Tillie Green on the grounds that the defendant was already married when she married the plaintiff.
A valuable cow belonging to J.H. Washburn was drowned last Wednesday when it slipped and fell into an air hole in the river.
Jim Haworth was arraigned before Probate Judge Henderson Saturday on the charge of failing to provide for his family and was given a sentence of 60 days in jail. He was allowed his freedom upon furnishing a bond and agreeing to provide for the family’s needs, upon failure to do which he will be remanded to jail to serve the sentence imposed.
50 Year
Dr. James M. Smith, D.M.D., will open a new dental office at his home in Bonners ferry March 1. He is a 1949 graduate of the University of Oregon school of dentistry and practiced dentistry in Redmond, Ore. Before coming to this area three years ago. An open house is planned.
Fred Hatfield, Bonners Ferry’s “Golden Boy,” goes after the Northwest Golden Gloves championship this weekend in Tacoma. The tournament will be the toughest in the boxing career of young Hatfield, who is 17 and fights in the 140 pounds class. Winners in the Tacoma tourney will qualify for the National AAU tournament at San Diego.
Among other items of business before the chamber was a communication from Robert Lenker to Atty. James McNally of Ione, Wash., relative to the proposal to extend Highway 2 through from Bonners Ferry up Smith creek and north of Priest Lake to Ione to tie in with a proposed route across northern Washington.
A public hearing will be held next Monday to allow interested persons an opportunity to hear a detailed report on the proposed city sewage lagoon at an estimated cost not to exceed $300,000.00. The treatment facilities are needed to comply with federal and state laws on pollution control. At the present time raw sewage is being pumped directly into the Kootenai river, and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act requires that this practice stop. The first portion of the present sewer system was installed in the Eaton Addition and downtown area in 1916. Sewer facilities were put in the South Bench Park Addition in 1938, and the Northside sewer was installed in 1953. The remainder of the present sewer system inside the city limits was installed in 1957.
15 Year
It finally happened. Despite its long history for rejecting school bonds and levies, Boundary County shed its image as a poster child for terrible schools as voters passed a $10.6 million plant facilities levy Tuesday by an overwhelming 63.96 percent. Of the 2,922 votes cast, 1,869 favored the levy while 1,051 voted against it. There were also two mutilated ballots.
The Nature Conservancy of Idaho announced on Saturday that it had purchased a conservation easement from Crown Pacific protecting 350 acres of timberland adjacent to its Ball Creek Ranch Preserve. The easement will protect the property from subdivision and development, protect wildlife habitat and allow sustainable timber harvest to continue.
A controversy surrounding the sheriff’s right to submit grant application without the Boundary County Commissions approval and signature raised a conflict between the two agencies when the commissioners claimed no prior knowledge of the grant. “We apprised the commissioners of our plans to put the grant together last February, so it was no surprise that there was one coming,” Boundary County Sheriff George Voyles said. The minutes from the Feb. 26-27, 2001 county commissioners meeting confirmed Voyles statement and further showed that none of the commissioners was verbally opposed to the application being submitted.