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The Columbia Falls homecoming parade down Nucleus Aveneue, September, 1978.
60 years ago,
August 3, 1956
Federal Judge Charles N. Pray attended the grand opening of the Charles N. Pray shelter at the head of Two Medicine Lake in East Glacier.
Forty-six years prior, it was Pray who, as Montana’s only Congressman, battled the House to pass the bill creating Glacier Park. Lon Hendrix Minks, 51, of Seattle, was arrested and subsequently sentenced to 30 days in jail after lighting a series of small fires on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation just outside of the park. Minks told authorities that the fires were to dry his socks.
50 years ago,
August 5, 1966
Bids were open for construction of the expansion of the swimming pool at Pinewood Park beginning on Aug. 22. A plane collided with a horse at the Meadowcreek Airstrip on the edge of the Bob Marshall Wildnerness. Damages amounted to $4,000.
John Altenburg, 16, Jack Weaver, 15, and twins Owen and Andy Weaver, 12, were commended for controlling and suppressing a lighting-started forest fire on Blaine Mountain. The youths were haying when they noticed a burning stump and grass. They drove up the mountain in a Jeep and contained the fire, which had spread to 240 square feet, and were just putting it out when the Forest Service crew arrived.
40 years ago,
August 5, 1976
A story and large photo of a fur-bearing trout dominated the front page. Glacier Park recorded its third fatal fall of the season when Donald William Ash, 29, of Whitefish, was killed. Ash was driving on the Sun Road and stopped at Haystack Creek to fill his canteen; he slipped and fell 80 feet over the nearly sheer rock cliff and landed in the creek bed below.
Icing problems appeared to have been the cause of a plane crash near Two Medicine. The wreckage was found near Young Man Lake below Flinsch Peak. The plane had last been seen on Nov. 1, 1975.
30 years ago,
August 6, 1986
Ross Alden Reed, 43, of Cardston, Alberta, was killed when his vehicle tore through the guardrail on the Sun Road just below the Weeping Wall. Reed’s body was found on the steep slope 350 feet below the road; his car was found another 200 feet lower, wrapped around a tree. Glacier Park’s rescue teams had a busy week.
Tom Habecker, Lake McDonald subdistrict ranger, was in river training when an emergency call came in. He accompanied a woman, complaining of heart problems, in the ambulance to North Valley Hospital, where hospital staff were surprised to see him still wearing his wetsuit. Two Prince of Wales Hotel employees won top honors at the fourth annual Culinary Olympics, held in Glacier Park.
20 years ago,
August 1, 1996
Plum Creek’s fiberboard plant was booming following six months of technical difficulties, and “doing so well, it can’t make products fast enough to suit the demand” according to Plant manager Dennis Robinson. Glacier National Park rangers continued the search for missing hiker Toma Jercinovic, 22.
The hiker had left to climb Mount Jackson the previous Sunday, and had not been found. Butch Farabee was named the new assistant Superintendent of Glacier National Park, bringing 35 years of experience to the job.
10 years ago,
August 3, 2006
The front page was dedicated to coverage of the Red Eagle fire. The proposed development of 1,000 new homes in Hungry Horse brought with it the possibility of a wastewater treatment plant for the town. Developers were asking the school board for their support with the plan, which would place the facility on Canyon Elementary School grounds. The land is still undeveloped today.