Traveling back in time: This day in Bonners Ferry history
100 Year
It was brought to the attention to the board of trustees that many of the sidewalks of the town were in bad condition. Immediate steps will be taken to have property owners notified to repair sidewalks abutting on their property and if repairs are not made at once the city will have the work done and assessed against the property.
J.R. Meeker is anxious to see a volunteer fire department organized in Bonners Ferry and in talking with a number of citizens the past week has had several volunteer their services. At the present time the city is in a poor condition financially and if a volunteer fire department were organized quite a saving would be realized. It would only be necessary to have one paid man in a volunteer organization and he would be responsible for the equipment and would wash and drain the fire hose.
Bonners Ferry and other towns of the Inland Empire where lumbering is a chief industry were placarded the past week with posters announcing that a strike had been declared on the Bonners Ferry Lumber company. The strike has now spread to the Kootenai river. Strike camps and picket lines have been established on the river at Kootenai Falls.
Town Clerk, H.E. Storm has been informed by the company which holds the bonds of Bonners Ferry Sewer Improvement District No. 1 that 29 property owners are delinquent in the payment of the first year’s sewer assessments. The total of the sewer delinquency is $464.71.
E.M Trigg and Wm. Barton, the two men arrested last Tuesday morning on the charge of having unlawful possession of intoxicating liquor, waived a preliminary hearing Wednesday and were bound over to the district court by Judge Henderson, under$1000 bonds.
50 Year
Don chessman, manager of the county airport, escaped serious injury Monday afternoon when a Piper single engine plane he was piloting crashed shortly after take-off in a field at the Lester Plato farm, about one-half mile from the end of the airport runway. Chessman said the plane’s engine conked out when he was 100 feet off the ground and he blamed the failure on a faulty carburetor, a new one that had just been installed.
Gregory Allen Smith, 9, son of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond C. Smith of Bonners Ferry, Drowned last Saturday afternoon in Myrtle Creek after falling into the stream when a plank broke as he walked across a bridge spanning the creek.
It was stated in an article last week that William Dawson was a deceased charter member of the Bonners Ferry Kiwanis club. Mr. Dawson, who still resides in Bonners Ferry, stopped at the Herald office this week to notify us that the report listing him as deceased was grossly exaggerated.
Three young ladies from Bonners Ferry completed an unusual record last Sunday when they graduated from the University of Idaho after being classmates through 16 years of school. Nancy Shelman, Helen Black and Linda MacDonald were classmates during eight years of grade school, then four years at Bonners Ferry high school, and finally, the four years of study at the University.
15 Years
Amidst moments of laughter and joy, cheers and tears, the class of 2002 tossed its caps skyward with shouts of jubilation as 103 graduating seniors walked out of Bonners Ferry High school for the last time.
An abandoned pickup truck located Sunday afternoon at the bottom of the Moyie River canyon by the Boundary County Sheriff’s Department has turned up as a stolen vehicle from Montana. According to Bonners Ferry Police Chief Dave Kramer, kayakers saw the pickup June 19 and called law enforcement, who said the vehicle had been pushed over a 300-foot embankment in the Moyie River canyon.
A 22-year-old Bonners Ferry man was arrested late Monday night for allegedly picking a 2 ½ year-old child up by the throat and choking and shaking him. Michael Alan Jones was charged with one felony count of aggravated battery, felony injury to children and two counts of misdemeanor injury to children. “There were marks on the child’s throat and by his ear,” said Bonners ferry Police Chief Dave Kramer. “We have sheltered that child and his younger brother in the past. The child lives with his mother who is pregnant with Jones’s child.” The child was treated and released from Boundary Community Hospital. Kramer added that a doctor’s office reported the alleged abuse to Health and Welfare which initiated the police investigation. Court records indicate that there was evidence of recent past abuse.
Kansas City FBI officials are looking for the public’s help in snaring a federal fugitive who may seek out relatives and friends in the area. Timothy Thomas Coombs, 43, is charged in federal court in Missouri with fleeing prosecution for the shooting of a Missouri Highway Patrol officer in 1994. A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered for information leading to Coombs’ arrest. Coombs should be considered extremely dangerous. Coombs is known to carry a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol and is expected to resist arrest. Anyone with information about Coombs is asked to contact local authorities.