Really old reporting
The Kalispell Weekly News, which I bought in 1974 and built from the smallest of Montana’s 72 weeklies into the largest, was started in the Flathead Valley not long after the Daily Inter Lake.
I did not pay a lot of money for the paper and only bought it for the decades of back issues which were to me a treasure of olden-day journalism. Sold “The News” in 1982 and multiple ownership since then has perhaps lost those historic files forever.
I don’t know, but I did save a few samples during my time as “Editor-Publisher-Janitor.” Enjoy three typical “really old” News reports reproduced here absolutely verbatim.
Oct. 8, 1904: SAPOLIO A GREAT CLEANSER
“Things are done right at the Kalispell hospital, when a patient shows up there if he is not in a proper condition as to cleanliness, the defect is soon remedied. Recently a native of sunny Italy showed up there. His appearance indicated plainly that for a long time he had been a stranger to water and soap. So he was promptly consigned to the bath room, accompanied by a Jap and a cake of sapolio. An hour later he came forth shining as brilliantly as an Italian sun, but the cake of sapolio was no more.”
Sept. 18, 1924: WHITEFISH MAYOR AND EX-MAYOR HAVE FIGHT
“Quite a little excitement was caused Sunday evening. H.T. Mayfield, former mayor and old-time engineer, started to settle a difference in approved Dempsey style with J.I. McLean, present mayor. According to reports, Mayfield had told McLean that if he mentioned him again in the One Horse News that he would knock his block off. In the Saturday issue of the One Horse News, Mayfield was the subject of editorial comment and was told that if he was a man of his word he would start the ‘block knocking.’ After reading the sheet, Mayfield started to find McLean, and encountered him on the street, and started the promised operation. McLean was slightly disfigured, but claims his ‘block’ was still at the right angle.”
Sept. 15, 1944: FIRST FOOTBALL GAME SATURDAY
“First football game of the season to be played locally Saturday evening of this week on the local (Kalispell) field with the whistle blowing at eight o’clock. The Columbia Falls High will invade the local gridiron. The local Rip Wilson-coached boys have been practicing but may not be in any too polished shape as yet and for that reason the Columbia Falls boys may be the means of producing a real thriller, when clashing with the Braves.”
Old-time newspaper guys were obviously not concerned about political correctness.
After I ran those dandy old-time news reviews in a 2013 column, I called Jack King who was our 1944 team captain. I asked him if Columbia Falls beat us in 1944.
He said, “Columbia Falls never beat us, but Whitefish did in 1945.”
Jack and I recalled the shame of that event. We then discussed the fact there were quite a few mean tough kids from Columbia Falls, probably Pecks, Girouxes, and at least one Hill.
The next year, 1945, Bill and Dick Giroux again showed up on the Braves field and pulled a small, skinny, fourth-string Braves senior guard’s left leg loose from the socket.
I’ve never completely forgiven them.
Life is good.
G. George Ostrom is an award-winning columnist. He lives in Kalispell.