Community’s new auto tourist park nears completion

100 Years Ago — 1920

Tourist park

to be completed

Don’t forget that tomorrow has been set aside by the Commercial Club as the day on which the auto tourist park is to be completed.

All places of business in the city will be closed for the afternoon to enable everyone to get out and do their part for the accommodation of automobile visitors

90 Years Ago — 1930

Celebration planned at Coolin

A big three-day celebration is being put on at Coolin on Priest Lake at which all kinds of amusements are advertised. Log rolling, swimming races, boat racing, pie-eating contest, etc.

Priest River boasts the cleverest lot of river pigs in the world.

Many have driven Wisconsin and Michigan streams 40 years ago and are still catty on a log.

We have 200-pound drivers who can walk a slack wire hung over the river, lie down, get up and dance a jig and come ashore without getting a caulk wet. The rivalry among these men is a topic of discussion in all camps and will be settled definitely at this celebration.

80 Years Ago — 1940

Three timber camps busy

Times seem very busy around Priest River with timber work going on in three camps: Stanley Jones’, Fred Forsyth’s and Ed Huot’s.

They have made a new logging road up the mountain behind Gilbert’s place. It is breathtaking to see those loads of long poles come around the curves. They brought out one pole 90 feet long last week.

70 Years Ago — 1950

Lookout named to honor Gisborne

Mount Gisborne is the new name approved by the National Board of Geographic Names for the former Looking Glass Lookout on the Priest River Experiment Forest.

The name was changed to honor Harry T. Gisborne, who died last November after 27 years with the Forest Service.

He attained an international reputation in forest fire control research. Much of his work was done on the Priest River Forest.

60 Years Ago — 1960

Pioneer ferryman passes

William J. (Bill) Geary, 85, well-known resident of the Newport area since the turn of the century, died last week at the Newport nursing home. Mr. Geary was best known as operator of the ferry across the Pend Oreille River from 1900 until the bridge was built in 1927.

50 Years Ago — 1970

Local boys honored

Wayne Falk and Royal Gerow were chosen by a committee within the Priest River Boy Scout troop for the honor of a trip to the Philmont Scout Ranch and Explorer Base in the Rocky Mountains of eastern New Mexico for specialized training in Boy Scout leadership.

40 Years Ago — 1980

Branham rows

Lady Lutes, a Pacific Lutheran women’s rowing club (Tacoma, Wash.) saw Priest River native Kathleen Branham, a senior, place sixth, with three partners, in the “light four” national competition, and also teamed for sixth in light pairs.

30 Years Ago — 1990

Brower to retire

Standing amid a network of pipes, pumps and filters, Ted Brower is at home on the job. Clean water has been his business for over a decade.

However, Brower, 62, will be retiring Aug. 1 after over 16 years of service with the City of Priest River.

He has been the operator/supervisor of the Priest River Filtration Treatment Plant since it went online in 1976.

20 Years Ago — 2000

Aerocet keeps on expanding

Aerocet, at the Priest River Industrial Park, recently took over the space at the park that was occupied by Elite Design. Taking over the space Elite occupied in the same building as Aerocet allowed the latter business to expand from a 10,000 square-foot-space to 15,000 sqaure feet. It was the second expansion of the business since owner Tom Hamilton and operations manager Matt Sigfrinius moved the company here from western Washington about five years ago.