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70 years ago

Aug. 22, 1947

It appeared that buffalo used to roam Glacier as far as Old Man Lake in Two Medicine. A buffalo skull was found by Richard Russell, a University of Michigan student working on blister rust control. Crews put out a lightning-caused fire on Apgar Mountain. Bud Cheff of Martin City saw two mountain goats in the Bad Rock Canyon and there was also a sighting of a mountain goat on Teakettle Mountain. In more recent years, there haven’t been any goat sightings, but a few years ago, four bighorn sheep were spotted along Columbia Mountain.

60 years ago

Aug. 23, 1957

Vonnie Street, 22, and his brother, Derald, allegedly stole the cripple donation jar from Harold’s Club. The Columbia Falls city council meeting had just ended and Mayor W.F. Bennett and councilman George Hanson saw the men running and went toward them. Hanson went to get the police and the men tried to jump Bennett, but that was the wrong move — Bennett was a boxer in college. The Street brothers fled after a ruckus, but Bennett got the jar and the men were later caught by Bennett, Hanson and police officer Darvin Lundstrom.

50 years ago

Aug. 25, 1967

Hot, dry weather saw Glacier Park with its largest fire in 31 years. The Huckleberry Mountain Fire burned across Huckleberry Mountain, Camas Creek and into Dutch Creek. It burned down Joe Opalka’s cabin along the way near Dutch Creek. Glacier’s Garden Wall was also on fire and that blaze had burned 800 acres. The largest fire prior to that was the Half Moon Fire of 1929. That burned 100,000 acres — 50,000 acres in Glacier.

40 years ago

Aug. 25, 1977

Police chief Dave Konopatzke shed more light on a fatal shooting that happened the week before. Bruce E. Hardy shot Darrel D. Litchfield at the Big Sky Manor Trailer Park with a .30-06 rifle. The two argued outside and Hardy shot Litchfield in the chest from about 10 feet away. Hardy then shot himself in the chest and died. Litchfield died en route to the hospital. Konopatzke said Litchfield was the “bully of the trailer court” and Hardy, in turn, had been taking tranquilizers and had apparently had enough of Litchfield in a simmering feud between the two.

30 years ago

Aug. 26, 1987

Sheriff’s deputies were investigating an apparent murder-suicide near Beaver Lake outside of Whitefish. Jason Bryant Wright, 16, shot and killed Mandy Lee Clewett, 10 with a .30-.06 rifle and then shot himself. There wasn’t immediately a clear motive in the case.

20 years ago

Aug. 21, 1997

Steve Howke and Brenda Stubbs tried to get married near the Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail in Glacier Park, but an ornery grizzly bear near the trail didn’t want them near its huckleberry patch. The bear bluff charged the party a couple of times, so they moved the wedding to Grinnell Lake instead.

10 years ago

Aug. 23, 2007

Showers were helping stem wildfires in the region, with .15 inches of rain and more falling on the Skyland Fire near Marias Pass, which had cost, to date, about $15 million. The fire burned from west of Marias Pass near the Skyland Road onto the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Heart Butte.