No headline
Skinny Blood’s car almost went into the river and after he and his wife stepped out of the car and the hand brake released. July 4, 1958.
70 years ago
Jan. 16, 1948
The Flathead National Forest boasted 4,230 miles of trails. The most popular trail was Trail 80, which runs from Spotted Bear to Big Prairie in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The trail saw 1,700 people and 3,000 horses. It was estimated that it would take about six years to build the Hungry Horse Dam at a cost of $100 million. Work on the diversion tunnel was underway.
60 years ago
Jan. 17, 1958
The Flathead National Forest was put up more than 90 million board feet of timber for sale in 1957, compared to 88 million the year before. Timber operators paid about $760,000 for the timber. Marjorie DeWit was named Betty Crocker homemaker of tomorrow for Columbia Falls High School.
50 years ago
Jan. 17, 1968
Trapper Ray Belston of Columbia Falls was featured in a radio show that detailed how he caught animals alive and then sold them to zoos. Belston was an excellent trapper — he had caught 20 wolverines over his career. The story featured a picture of Belston with an anesthetized wolverine with a bandage of its foot. The wolverines, caught locally, was headed to a Colorado Springs Zoo.
40 years ago
Jan. 19, 1978
Artist Ace Powell was being treated in the hospital after he fell and broke his shoulder. The Gress family sold the Ol’ River Bridge, which was formerly Rex’s, to a corporation headed up by Harry Van Wezel of Alberta. The Gress family had expanded the popular Columbia Heights establishment. It was first built by Rex Worrall in 1947. Today it is being eyed for a museum, but hasn’t been used in years.
30 years ago
Jan. 20, 1988
Columbia Falls was considered a top location for the Idaho Timber Plant. Kalispell and Whitefish were both vying to get the new Flathead Valley Community College campus. FVCC student and school trustee Jill Rocksund said she would have liked to have seen it in Whitefish, since it was closer to Columbia Falls.
20 years ago
Jan. 15, 1988
Enrollment at Columbia Falls High School was nearing AA classification, with just under 900 students attending. Rail cars from a Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway plunged off the tracks outside of East Glacier Park above the Two Medicine River. The cars didn’t land in the water and no one was hurt.
10 years ago
Jan. 17, 2008
Margaret Black, the “matriarch of St. Mary” died at age 105. Margaret and her husband, Hugh, built the lodge at St. Mary in 1932, which started out as a collection of guest cabins. Black loved the outdoors and hiked well into her 90s.