Yesterdays: Bear trees hikers at Avalanche Lake

70 years ago

May 29, 1953

George H. Beaton, plow foreman and William A. Whitford were killed in an avalanche while plowing the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. Frederick Klein was critically injured and Jean Sullivan survived after being buried in snow for 8 hours.

60 years ago

May 31, 1963

A new feature in Glacier National Park that summer were 260 “bear proof” garbage cans. The tops of the cans were designed by Ted Wirth and were able to be opened by people, but bears had a tough time with them. Wirth was a Billings architect.

50 years ago

June 1, 1973

Plum Creek was expected to start constructing a new fiberboard plant in Columbia Falls. Westwood Structures was building the structure and equipment was arriving. The main plant would be 450 feet by 300 feet.

40 years ago

June 2, 1983

A sow grizzly treed a couple of tourists at Avalanche Lake. The griz was apparently more curious than hungry, as it did the folks no harm. A man was missing at Kintla Lake and rangers feared he had drowned.

30 years ago

June 3, 1993

About 1,200 people turned out to urge the Bonneville Power Administration to make a proposed electricity rate hike 10% or less. The BPA supplied power to the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. plant, which was a major employer at the time. CFAC had cut its production and laid off workers earlier in the year, blaming high electricity costs.

20 years ago

June 5, 2003

Huge slabs of rock — one the size of a jammer bus, slammed down onto the Going-to-the-Sun Road. It was estimated the large one weighed 52 tons. Park crews blasted the rock with explosives and then was able to move the chunks away with a big front-end loader.

10 years ago

May 29, 2013

U.S. Geological Survey biologist Kate Kendall was retiring after 30 years studying bears in Glacier National Park. Kendall pioneered non-invasive methods to count bears across the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem by using DNA analysis of bear hair samples.