Yesterdays: Girl scouts cowboy camp in snow storm
Cleaning up a Burlington Northern Santa Fe wreck at tunnel 3.7, Jan. 16, 1977. (Mel Ruder photo)
70 years ago
March 6, 1953
The county plows had made it to Polebridge. They also hauled up a load of planks to make repairs to the bridge across the North Fork of the Flathead. They were installing the elevators in the Hungry Horse Dam. Each one was about 450 feet tall.
60 years ago
March 6, 1963
Three Columbia Falls Girl Scouts and their leader were likely the first Glacier Park campers of the season. They slept outside at the Apgar campground without tents — just sleeping bags. It snowed during the night. The girls were Susan Young, June Schrock and Laurie Ainsworth with Mrs. Ainsworth the leader.
50 years ago
March 9, 1973
The three forks of the Flathead River proposed to become designated as Wild and Scenic under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. A public hearing on the matter was scheduled for early March. Some 219 miles of river would be added to the system.
40 years ago
March 10, 1983
There were citizen petitions to recall county commissioners Henry Oldenburg and Mel Wollan. Oldenburg was accused of being uncooperative and not supporting majority rule and Wollan was accused of circumventing the transaction of county business.
30 years ago
March 11, 1993
A group of athletes and individual were worried about a Columbia Falls youth sports policy that said scores wouldn’t be recorded in games until students reached high school. That was resulting in kids being less competitive and lacking school spirit, noted critics Chris Finberg and Barb Riley.
20 years ago
March 6, 2003
The F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co. wasn’t too happy about the timber salvage sale of the Moose Fire, which burned about 70,000 acres, half of which were in Glacier National Park. The other half were on Forest Service lands, but only about 3,000 acres were actually put up for sale and even then, larger trees were off limits as they were bird habitat.
10 years ago
March 6, 2013
Glacier National Park changed the concessionaire contract so that the entire fleet of 33 red buses would have to be restored. The original draft contract called for restoring just half the fleet, but the public didn’t think much of that proposal. Today, Xanterra Inc. which holds the contract, has been slowly, but surely restoring the fleet each year, with new engines and chassis. About half the fleet is done so far.