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70 years ago

April 25, 1947

With the sun coming out, unemployment dropped from 1,133 to 700 this week, the Flathead County employment office noted. The numbers were expected to plummet further as work on various projects and logging ramped up. The previous year in July, there was virtually no unemployment. Editor Mel Ruder raised concerns about city fire ordinances in downtown that were limiting growth in the city. He noted that while construction was happening from “dawn to dusk” outside the city, inside the city there was a notable lack of construction.

60 years ago

April 26, 1957

Big event in Columbia Falls was the arrival of a new fire truck from Indiana. The truck cost $20,000. Ned Coombs drove the truck from the Midwest to Montana.

Glacier Park Co. reported it had ordered 68 tons of meat for the upcoming tourist season to feed folks at the lodges in the Park. That didn’t include lobster, shrimp and other seafood.

50 years ago

April 28, 1967

Structural steel was rising at the Anaconda Aluminum Co. plant expansion. There was 7,600 tons of steel “in the air,” the story noted. Art Burch announced he was selling the Glacier Park Boat Co. firm to his son, Arthur M. Burch. The elder Burch had owned the company and operated the tour boats on Glacier’s lakes since 1938. Art’s father, Arthur H. Burch, was a pioneer dentist who came to Columbia Falls in 1890, setting up shop in Columbia Falls and then later, Kalispell. A. J. Burch purchased the boat company from J.W. Swanson in 1938.

40 years ago

April 29, 1977

Glacier Park plows were within a mile of Logan Pass at this early date, just below Rimrocks on the Sun Road. Plows were encountering only half the normal snow. The Hungry Horse News was featured in the Los Angeles Times. The story lamented big-time media and the value of small town newspapers. Editor Mel Ruder, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1965, said, “I got the thing by the Grace of God and Dorothy Johnson.” Johnson was the Montana novelist who nominated him for the award.

30 years ago

April 29, 1987

Charles Gibbs, 40, of Libby was killed by a grizzly bear in Glacier Park after he got too close to a sow and her three yearling cubs. Gibbs was trying to get a better picture of the four bears. Gibbs tried to climb a 30-foot tree, but the sow got ahold of him at the 15-foot mark and dragged him down. Gibbs’ body was found about 50 yards from the attack site. The Park had sent the film from his camera to a lab to see just how close he was before the attack.

20 years ago

April 24, 1997

Heavy snows were taking a toll on Glacier’s backcountry buildings. The Fielding Cabin and Packer’s Roost were damaged, and Glacier Park was worried about others as well. Firefighters unstuck a 3-year-old boy from a tree. The boys was climbing the tree when he got his leg stuck between two branches. The boy’s knee was stuck in the tree, but his other foot was on the ground. Firefighters used two air balloons to spread the branches apart and release the boy.

10 years ago

April 26, 2007

Jake Sweeney shot an albino bear up the North Fork of the Flathead. He said it took two days for him and his friends to haul it out of the woods