Yesterdays: Horsemen buy hay for fire victims
Dale Pertie and Richard Deed tear out currant bushes in the Two Medicine region of Glacier National Park in August, 1950. The idea was to kill the bushes because they carried blister rust, which decimated five-needle pine trees in the park. The effort failed as blister rust was found to have other hosts than just currants.
70 years ago
Aug. 18, 1950
It looked like the Harvey Machine Co. would build an aluminum plant in Columbia Falls. The company said it had signed a contract with the Bonneville Power Administration for power. The company said it expected to start production by May 1, 1951. Meanwhile the Hungry Horse Dam project reached peak employment at 2,400 workers.
60 years ago
Aug. 19, 1960
George Bouifillet and Delos Robbins of Missoula won the raft race from West Glacier to Columbia Falls as part of the Progress Days festivities. They won $120. Mary Ann Clare was crowned the queen of Progress Days.
50 years ago
Aug. 21, 1970
In an editorial headlined “All Long Haired Aren’t Hippies” editor Mel Ruder noted that just because people had long hair didn’t mean they were causing trouble. One group of long hairs he met on the Hidden Lake Trail was a group of kids on a science field trip. There was one problem with longer hair — the sinks at the men’s bathrooms in Glacier were clogging with hair more often.
40 years ago
Aug. 21, 1980
The Glacier Park Foundation, a nonprofit group of former concessionaire employees, had submitted a bid to run the park’s hotels and lodges. It had been a wet year and more than an inch of rain in the past week made it even wetter.
30 years ago
Aug. 16, 1990
The Camas Pack in Glacier National Park had two litters of pups, bring eight more wolves onto the park landscape. The pack now had about 15 wolves, biologists said.
20 years ago
Aug. 17, 2000
The Backcountry Horsemen of the Flathead pooled their resources and bought 350 bales of hay that they gave to ranchers in the Bitterroot that had lost their hay due to drought and wildfires that were burning in that region.
10 years ago
Aug. 19, 2010
Montana Congressman Denny Rehberg was introducing legislation in Congress that would remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List. There was an estimated population of about 500 wolves in Montana.