No headline
Relaxing on Black Lake in the Jewel Basin, Sept. 13, 1964. (Mel Ruder photo)
70 years ago
July 4, 1947
John F. Leary of Kalispell was fined $100 and sentenced to 30 days in jail for killing a deer in Glacier National Park. He’d been camping near Quartz Creek and rangers found the deer meat in his car when they stopped him at the west entrance. The jail sentence was suspended once he paid the fine. Mrs. Nick Kartheiser shot and killed a grizzly at the F, K and L lumber mill after a pig started squealing, alerting her to the marauding bear. She shot it with a .30-.30 rifle and said she wouldn’t have been so brave if she knew it was a grizzly.
60 years ago
July 5, 1957
A new Columbia Falls city ordinance would require that all able-bodied males between the ages of 18 and 45 pay a $3 tax or work a day on city streets. The new ordinance had its second reading. Sperry and Granite Park chalets were set to get new propane refrigerators. They previously kept meat and dairy products cool with nearby snow in lockers.
50 years ago
July 7, 1967
A study by Arthur Johnson of the U.S. Geological Survey showed that Grinnell and Sperry glaciers had both grown — at least temporarily. Grinnell’s elevation rose one to two feet from 1963 to 1966 and Sperry’s rose four to 10 feet. Still, at the turn of the century, the glaciers were more than twice the size than they were in the 1960s, he noted.
40 years ago
July 7, 1977
Jeff Gage, 19, of Shelby drowned when the raft he was in struck a downed cottonwood tree in the Middle Fork of the Flathead. He was not wearing a lifejacket and may have been caught under the water by the downed tree. His body was later found downstream.
A 5-year-old girl was killed in Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada by a bear. Allison Muser was playing at the Little Prairie Picnic area with her sister near a creek while her father fished nearby when the bear grabbed her. She was critically injured and died en route to the hospital. Rangers believed it was a black bear and later shot a brown black bear that was in the area that they cornered using a helicopter.
30 years ago
July 8, 1987
A climber from Texas was bitten by a grizzly bear on Little Dog Mountain. Gregg Erickson, 26, had hiked to the south side of the mountain when he saw the sow with two cubs about 100 yards away. He yelled and rang his bear bells and the sow charged straight up the talus slope in three short charges, he claimed. It bit him on the leg and left him. He was treated with stitches for wounds to his leg at the Browning Hospital.
20 years ago
July 3, 1997
Standing water from runoff from record snow was likely to stay around all summer. While flooding was not perceived as severe, there was extensive damage to private property and county roads and bridges and smaller lakes were still way above average.
10 years ago
July 5, 2007
Glacier Park’s new free shuttle service up the Going-to-the-Sun Road was now in service, as was the Park’s new transit center. Meanwhile, unemployment in Flathead County was just 1.9 percent.