This day in Bonners Ferry history
100 Year
Numerous forest fires are raging in various parts of Boundary county and today at least 150 men are working under the direction of forest rangers in the effort to put out the fires and prevent valuable timber from being burned.
The coroner’s jury which investigated the cause of Mike Kennan’s death last Wednesday returned a verdict of “death by means of a blow on the head delivered by a party or parties unknown.”
Mike Kennan’s body was found in a small lake on his ranch near Naples last Monday by three young men who had gone to the lake to swim. In a box in Kennan’s cabin Undertake Stookey found a copy of a will which Kennan is supposed to have written some time ago. It stated that he had nothing to gain or lose in this life and that in case of his death his property should be sold to pay his debts and that the remainder should be turned over to Father Kelly. The letter was addressed to W.P. Mahoney and W.D. Baxter. Sheriff Sawyer is investigating the case and it is possible that arrest will be made shortly.
The family of O.S. Davis has been through a siege of measles for several weeks. Delmar, the oldest son, was first sick and then Norval, the youngest son, caught the disease. Sunday Mrs. Davis was afflicted. The two boys caught cold during their sickness and Delmar is having trouble with his eyes while Norval’s measles settled in his ears.
50 Year
Washington Waterpower Company officials met with the City of Bonners Ferry council Tuesday evening in a special session for the purpose of discussing a possible merger of the Bonners Ferry water and electric department with the Washington utility company. The matter was prompted by the recent retirement of H.M. Buroker who for many years has managed the departments. It is reported that Northern Lights, Inc., has also made overtures toward consolidation of the two utilities. WWP’s offer, made following a physical inventory and analysis of the annual reports of the city utilities, was $1,600,000.
The wild west lives again in Bonners Ferry this weekend when the Selkirk Saddle club’s Kootenai River Rodeo will be held at the Fairgrounds arena. Rodeo Queen Linda Owsley and Princesses Sheri Engert and Maridel Severson will be on the channel 4 Dialing for Dollars program today (Thursday) promoting the rodeo.
Bonners Ferry was well represented at the Interstate Fairgrounds speedway stock car races in Spokane July 20 when Dick Stangel took first place and Jack Hawkins took third place in the heat race. Vi Stangel took first and Irene Hawkins took second in the powder puff derby.
Almost all of the thousands of Scouts from 100 nations expected in the United States for the XII World Jamboree in Idaho August 1-9 are now in this country, touring and being hosted in Scout camps and homes on their way to the Farragut State Park site on Lake Pend Orielle. The Aurora 7 space capsule is on the site, soon to be joined by the Gemini 9 and waiting for NASA personnel to come and train the multilingual Scouts who will be assigned to host the display.
15 Year
Blame it on the woodpeckers. All $166,603.15 of it. That’s the bid that was awarded to Wilson Construction of Canby, Ore., to replace 10 wooden structures with steel ones for the Katka transmission line. Local woodpeckers have been having a field day with the 33-pole line through Katka Mountain that ties onto a Bonneville Power Administration line and goes north to the Moyie substation.
Fisherman at McArthur Lake had an easy time catching their limit as wildlife officials drew down the reservoir’s water to rejuvenate marsh vegetation. Officials began emptying the reservoir last month as part of a long-range management plan that calls for the lake to be drained every five to 10 years. The state has drained McArthur Lake three times. The first was in 1968, when the dam was rebuilt and reservoir expanded. In 1977, the state drained the lake, chemically treated it and restocked it with brook trout. But within two years, perch and pumpkinseed populations returned to their former levels. The lake was drained again in 1994 for dam repairs.
Lee Smith has been on such a fast track since he graduated from Bonners Ferry High School 34 years ago that the son of a Boundary County dentist is suddenly the new wonderking of drag racing and the centerpiece of a feature story splashed in this month’s issue of Drag Racer magazine. What makes Smith — who is also the CEO of Bowman Motorized Carriage in Salem, Ore., which manufactures motorized skycars for the logging industry — the rising star in a sport where his ramped-up 2,400 horse-powered engine and ungodly speeds of 220 miles per hour are not only turning heads. The guy can simply flat-out beat all comers on a drag strip.