Yesterdays: Mountain Lion Becomes Dinner
Jesse Wheatley spray paints a hungry horse in January, 1951. The family made the sculptures as a business in the winter time. (Mel Ruderphoto)
70 years ago
Jan. 12, 1951
Front page story noted the death of Bill Lewtz, a Columbia Falls pioneer and blacksmith. His shop was located where the Masonic Temple is today. Lewtz came out West as a water boy with the Great Northern Railway in 1879 at age 13.
60 years ago
Jan. 13, 1961
A mountain lion would be table fare for the Lions Club at Summer, Wash. The lion was shot by Ray Belston and Charles Alread after they tracked it down with hounds eating a deer near Desert Mountain. Butcher Boots Schoenberg then cut and wrapped the lion at the behest of Jack Ellman, who lived in Washington and asked Schoenberg for the meat.
50 years ago
Jan. 15, 1971
The Anaconda Aluminum Co. had started to install scrubbers that would drastically cut fluoride emissions at the aluminum plant in Columbia Falls. The fluoride emissions were beginning to affect trees in town and in Glacier National Park.
40 years ago
Jan. 15, 1981
Spring-like weather on Glacier National Park’s east side saw rangers open up several roads, including the Many Glacier Road. It was 50 degrees out at Many, so the park opened the road, which had no snow. Rangers were also seeing awake bears roaming around on the eastern fringes of the park.
30 years ago
Jan. 17, 1991
The United States went to war with Iraq. Local Vietnam Veteran Ed Cumming said he believed at the time that the U.S. was going to war too soon. Other veterans disagreed. The war is over, but the U.S. still has troops in Iraq today.
20 years ago
Jan. 18, 2001
Glacier National Park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis told the Columbia Falls Chamber members at a luncheon that we should be thanking the park for clean water — she noted the protected landscape of the park provided clean drinking water for people downstream, as it still does today.
10 years ago
Jan. 12, 2011
It was a tough week for winter recreationists. One man was killed in an avalanche up the Hungry Horse Reservoir near Beta Lake. Two others were killed in accidents on Big Mountain. One man went in a tree well and died, another apparently had some sort of medical issue and was found dead on the slopes.