From the Dayton Chronicle archives

Ten Years Ago

July 20, 2011

Ladybug Ice Cream delivers old time nostalgia to Hot Summer Days! Shirley and Howard Hunter recently taken on the new summer time project with their recently acquired vehicle which originally was a 1972 postal truck, turning it into the Ladybug Ice Cream truck.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

July 22, 1996

Combines are set to roll this week as Washington farmers begin harvesting a near-record wheat crop for the state. Estimates by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Washington Wheat Commission predict a crop of 176,825,000 bushels, slightly lower than the all-time record of 177,580,000 bushels harvested in 1993.

Fundraising efforts for the Old Liberty Theater restoration project are underway, according to Sheila Zanger, Chairman of the Touchet Valley Arts Council.

On Thursday, July 11, the Inland Wildlife restoration and Army Corps of Engineers added by nonprofit organizations Tri-State Steelheaders and Pheasants Forever, planted Japanese millet into the acres of mud left at the mouth of the Walla Walla river by February’s flood.

Fifty Years Ago

July 22, 1971

Gerald D. “Jerry” Smith, who has been teaching at Washtucna High School for the past two years, will be a mathematics instructor at Dayton Junior High School for the 1971-72 term.

Plans for the fifth annual City-Farm swap have been finalized, forty-one families from the Puget Sound area have been selected and will spend the weekend of August 6-8 learning first-hand about life on a wheat farm during harvest as guests of wheat growers of Columbia County.

Smallpox Epidemic in 1881 Recounted by History Buff, Dail Butler Laughery. “This fearful disease which raged all over the Pacific Northwest. The town of Dayton was visited by an epidemic of smallpox of unusual severity, school were closed, business was paralyzed and so serious the citizens devise means to stamp out the disease and bring the town again to its normal.”

Seventy-Five Years Ago

July 18, 1946

Joe McQuary is announcing this week the opening of the new store, he and his sons, Vyrl and Kip, will operate at the corner of Main and Willow streets. Associated with them as meat cutter will be Darrell McCauley, heretofore be employed by the Columbia Meats and Grocery.

Accident victim Delbert Marll, 30, was severely injured Thursday evening while operating a swather on the Merle Gillis place northeast of Dayton. The swather hit a small erosion ditch, throwing Marll over into the mechanism. Gerald Randolph was close enough to hear his cry for help.

James Raley Harsh, 23, Waitsburg, was killed Thursday night when a small pea-dusting plane he was flying cashed on the Greenway farm, six miles from east of Dixie.

One Hundred Years Ago

July 20, 1921

A match or cigar or cigarette carelessly thrown from a passing auto caused a loss of close to $30,000 wheat on the Charles Flathers’ farm two miles west of Prescott.

One Hundred Twenty-Five Years Ago

July 18, 1896

Farmer, if you are in need of a good, home-made draper, rubber or leather belting, lace leather, copper rivets, harvesting gloves, axle grease, machine oil, rope, wagon covers, hammocks, tents, or any other goods carried in a harness and saddle store, call on G.A. Parker the old reliable store corner Main and Second Streets.