A weekly look back compiled by the Clark County Historical Museum from The Columbian archives available at columbian.newspapers.com or at the museum.
100 years ago
The Clarke County Dairymen stressed the importance of cooperation among local producers at the organization’s picnic on Sept. 15, 1923, at Battle Ground Lake. In a speech, Clyde Riddell informed attendees that, in 1922, the county produced 17.6 million gallons of milk “valued at approximately $1,000,000 a year for the county” (or nearly $17.7 million in today’s dollars). “Mr. Riddell spoke of the value of the Battle Ground cheese factory, and since everyone at the picnic tasted the cheese and knew something of its quality, there was no surprise when he told of the success of the enterprise.” Other speakers included a farm loan employee and a “student of co-operative marketing.”
75 years ago
E.L. Liming brought about the demise of an animal, variously described as “a grey timber wolf and a ‘large coyote,’ ” often seen roaming the wooded areas surrounding the Vancouver Barracks on Sept. 23, 1948. Liming, a local school bus driver, received permission from law enforcement to go after the 40-pound coyote. After spotting it “emerging from the trees in the south end of the Barracks, Liming raised his buckshot-loaded shotgun and let it fly.”
50 years ago
On Sept. 23, 1973, Clark College announced its class offerings for the upcoming fall quarter, including a new political science course focused “on the relationship between Congress and the President.” With increased interest in the subject due to the Watergate hearings, instructor Paul Aldinger’s course provided “an examination of the balance of power, the constitutional authority of Congress, the constitutional issues involved in Watergate, and the relationship between Congress and the President in policy-making decisions.” Clark College was also offering the art of making Danish pastry, and “People and Politics,” a course melding English 101 and Political Science 101.
25 years ago
On Sept. 17, 1998, The Columbian delved into the Interstate 5 Bridge painting project set to begin in April. The bridge hadn’t received a fresh coat of paint since 1966. The two-year job would cost $22 million (about $41 million in today’s dollars) and required 25,000 gallons of Oregon State Green paint — a color “nobody else wants to claim,” according to Doug Eakin, structural coating coordinator for Oregon’s Department of Transportation. One of the biggest parts of the job was removing the lead-based paint from 1917, when the bridge first went up. Engineers devised two solutions: use “metal slag” to blast away and capture the old paint, which would then be shipped for use in cement; or blast away the paint using steel grit, “and the whole collected mess can be trucked to a plant in Missouri that would extract the lead for use in batteries.”
