Yesterdays: Cats beat Missoula to end Spartan's 55-game win streak
Coach Ralph Johnson is hoisted by the team after the Wildcats broke the Missoula Spartans 55 game winning streak in January, 1965. (Mel Ruder photo)
70 years ago
Jan. 14, 1955
A 20-room dormitory was taken by train from Blackfoot to East Glacier via railroad. It would be put at the Glacier Park Lodge for an employee dormitory.
60 years ago
Jan. 15, 1965
The Columbia Falls basketball team stopped the Missoula Spartans 55-game win streak, dropping them 77-62. A post-game photo featured coach Ralph Johnson being hoisted by the team on their shoulders after the win. They were rebuilding the bridge at Blankenship over the Flathead River. Beams from the old Higgins Street Bridge in Missoula were being used.
50 years ago
Jan. 10, 1975
The first baby of the new year in the north end of the Flathead was Amy Lillith Guardia, who was born in a modest, two-bedroom home with wood stove heat and no electricity near Polebridge. Outside the temperature was about zero. The baby and mother, Jessica Guardia, were fine. They telephoned a doctor when she went into labor, but it couldn’t make it up to the home.
40 years ago
Jan. 17, 1985
Glacier National Park ranger Dave Panebaker nabbed three poachers from Browning. Panebaker was the Walton District Ranger and stopped to investigate a pickup parked alongside the road. As he was interviewing one man, a dead cow elk rolled down the hillside. Panebaker found two other men up the slope, hiding under a tree.
30 years ago
Jan. 19, 1995
Columbia Falls OK’d a zone change in aluminum city that all but banned any new trailers in the neighborhood north of the railroad tracks. Developer Robert Rinke was proposing to add a 10-trailer development and neighbors were worried about the pollution from that many septic systems. Existing trailers were grandfathered in.
20 years ago
Jan. 13, 2005
The Columbia Falls Junior High failed to meet federal “No Child Left Behind” academic standards and would have to offer tutoring to some students in the next year. The school said the federal standard was unfair, as it lumped all students, even special education kids, into one metric for the standardized tests.
10 years ago
Jan. 14, 2015
A company was expanding its operations to include a local meat processing plant, Vandevanter Meats on Trap Road. They produced a product called Ominibars, which are still sold today. They contain beef and other ingredients.