Yesterdays: 1963 chinchilla farm in Martin City
Putting in track for the new AAC plant in Columbia Falls, March, 1953. (Mel Ruder photo)
70 years ago
April 3, 1953
Crews from General Shea Morrison were finishing up work on the Hungry Horse Dam, drilling and filling voids with grout under the dam, which, at the time, was the fourth largest concrete dam in the world. They were working three shifts a day every day of the week to get the work done.
60 years ago
April 5, 1963
E.B. Finch was raising chinchillas in the upper floor of the Martin City Hotel. The furry animals are originally from South America, but they were now raised as pets and culls were used for fur. It took 120 to 150 chinchilla pelts to make a coat. The animals liked to eat raisins.
50 years ago
April 4, 1973
Ray Barnhart defeated incumbent Lloyd Aldrich in the Columbia Falls city mayoral race, 397-238. Eight people were running for four open seats on the School District 6 Board. A mild winter meant better elk and deer survival in the region.
40 years ago
April 7, 1983
They were using horses to log a timber sale near Lion Lake outside of Hungry Horse. The big draft horses were owned by Pete Lapham of Hardway Logging. Two horses could pull a log that weighed 5,000 pounds, provided it didn’t dig into the mud.
30 years ago
April 8, 1993
Glacier Park said the Sun Road could be open to hikers and bikers to Avalanche Creek. This was a common theme decades ago, even in the 1950s. Today, crews don’t even start plowing until the first week of April.
20 years ago
April 3, 2003
It was the beginning of the end of the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. plant as about 175 workers had been told they would be laid off. About 33 of the workers in the first round of cuts were now seeking retraining for other jobs. At the time, the plant employed about 330 workers, so the cuts would leave it with about 155.
10 years ago
April 3, 2013
There was still talk about providing power for the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. plant, but it was just that — talk. The plant would never restart after it shut down in 2009. The Glacier Park Conservancy was helping the park with funding for plowing after the Park saw about $682,000 in cuts to its base budget. The Conservancy expected to give the Park Service about $10,000 to pay for seasonal staff that worked on plowing the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The road opened from the east side that year on June 12 and from the west side June 21.