Out of The Past 05/13/26
May 13, 2026
By:
Stevens County Historical Society
This Ford car, donated by Congoleum Co., is one of three cars given to merchants covering the entire United States, 17,000 centers carrying their products. H.O. Bair, furniture store owner in Colville, is shown receiving one of the three cars given away. The vehicle was delivered to Rollis and Ralph Willett, car dealers in Colville. Their business was located on the corner of Birch and Main streets in Colville, now occupied by Saundra’s Furniture. Photo courtesy Stevens County Historical Society.
100 Years Ago—
The 20th graduating class of the Colville accredited high school, numbering 57 pupils, will receive diplomas next Friday night at the Colville Theater.
This class has set a record for scholastic activities that will make it remembered
throughout the history of the school.
A landowner’s map of four townships, between Marcus and Gifford, has just
been completed by Archie R. Squire of Kettle Falls. It shows all lands on both
sides of the river, with legal descriptions of land, owners, and location of homes.
Vulcanizing by the latest method, with new equipment, is now possible at Willett Bros. Garage. Six molds for casings and a tumble plate for inner tubes now
form a separate department in the big garage.
75 Years Ago—
This week’s edition of the Statesman-Examiner may not look different but it
sure ‘nuf is. It was printed on what started out last Thursday as a truck load of
assorted nuts and bolts, and ended up Tuesday as a fast-operating No. 1 Miehle newspaper press. The paper’s old press, which had never missed a week since
1900, was retired.
The State Department of Education gave Colville the go-ahead signal on a
new 12-room grade school this week (now Hofstetter Elementary School).
KETTLE FALLS – Kettle Falls tops the Roosevelt Lake Baseball League, with
three straight wins to date. The Kettle team racked up their third win Sunday
when they defeated the 760th AC&W Radar Base team 26-2.
50 Years Ago—
The military Ft. Colville monument three miles northeast of Colville on the
Aladdin Road was moved this month to a site overlooking the position of the
actual fort. The job of moving the monument was undertaken by the Stevens
County Road department in cooperation with the Colville Bicentennial com- mittee.
Colleen Kramer, a freshman at Colville High School, was notified last week
she had won the first place award in the Scholastic Smith Corona National Writ- ing Contest.
Ed Bryan, Colville contractor and Jaycee member, was named to the Jaycee’s
Outstanding Young Men of America recently.
25 Years Ago—
Pull out the extra blankets and dust off the picnic baskets because the Colville
park will be buzzing with music this summer. This July and August, the Colville
Recreation Department is putting on Summerjam, a series of six evening con- certs.
To say Colville senior Justin Drake had a great day of competition at Friday’s
Frontier League District finals might be an understatement. Drake won the 100
and 200 meter races, and also won the long jump with a new school record jump
of 23 feet, 4.25 inches. He also anchored the winning 4x100 relay team.
10 Years Ago—
KETTLE FALLS – The Kettle Falls School District has recently been award- ed three grants in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, totaling
$1.69 million, and an opportunity for a high school teacher to complete an in- ternship in career and technical education.
Average retail gasoline prices in Washington have risen 6.2 cents per gallon
in the last week and are averaging $2.54 a gallon, according to GasBuddy’s daily
survey of 2,666 gas outlets in Washington. This compares with the national av- erage that has increased 1.7 cents per gallon in the last week to $2.22 a gallon.