Out of the Past: 09/17/2025

100 Years Ago—

The annual fair at Yep-Kanum opens next Wednesday with a gorgeous street parade and pageant at 1 o’clock. From then until midnight on Saturday will be a joyous time in Colville – for this is the seasonal reception which Colville gives to the surrounding country.

The Chloride Queen – for many years but a prospect – is now a producing mine. The ore bodies are being mined, the values are concentrated at the property, and Colville now has a regular shipper in its territory – a shipper which has passed from the prospecting to the mining stage permanently. The Chloride Queen Mine is on Clugston Creek, 14 miles north of Colville.  It was located in 1885 by the Kearney brothers, original operators of the Old Dominion Mine. About 1890 the property was passed to Paul LaPlant and R. E. Lee.

75 Years Ago—    

The long-anticipated opening of Barman’s new store at Main and Astor Streets was scheduled this week to be Nov. 1, or sooner, according to Louis Strauss, owner. 

The curfew law will go into effect in Colville, Wednesday night. Police Chief Merle Carr announced this week that the curfew bell will be sounded nightly beginning next Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. Chief Carr said that all children under 16 years old will have to be off the streets at that time.

“Cinderella,” Walt Disney’s famous technicolor cartoon production, will head the double feature bill at the Alpine Theater Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

50 Years Ago—  

Lee W. Cagle and Vern Hotchkiss will square off in the November general election for the position of mayor of the city of Colville. Cagle drew the largest number of votes in the five candidates race with 322 votes, while Hotchkiss collected 176.

“Colville is the right size community to turn drug abuse around,” Capt. Ed Braun of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department told Colville Chamber of Commerce members Tuesday.  “Your community still has three important things. It has the family, the church and the neighborhood; you can talk to the youth of your city.”

25 Years Ago—

METALINE FALLS—The Cominco Ltd., through its American subsidiary, Cominco American Inc., plans to spend $70 million in U.S. funds to rebuild the old Pend Oreille Mine north of Metaline Falls. The target date for re-opening is sometime within two years.

KETTLE FALLS—A second fire within a time frame of just over a week has claimed yet another local area business. This time, a building across the street and used by Fuhrman’s Feed and Supply in Colville was consumed by fire. Lindquist Grocery and Shoes, located in the heart of Kettle Falls reportedly caught fire at a time after 2 a.m. Tuesday morning, according to Mrs. Lindquist, owner.

10 Years Ago—

Construction on the handsome new Saundra’s Furniture and Design home in downtown Colville is getting closer to the finish line. The new store will open late this fall. The downtown “anchor” business was destroyed by fire in February 2013. The new store was relocated to a refurbished warehouse on Wynne Street during new construction.

Hannah Johnson of the Stevens County Stompers recently competed in the USA National Clogging Championships in Nashville, Tenn. Johnson is now a two-time “National Choreographed Solo Clogging Champion. She also won first place in her age division in Masters Traditional.