From the Dayton Chronicle archives

Ten Years Ago

July 9, 2014

When your bike tires are flat and you NEED to get to the candy store, the mother of invention kicks in for Amaya Asbury, with Ruby Johnson under an umbrella in a commandeered a lawn cart, to make the trip to Steve's Grocery on a lazy Fourth of July afternoon.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

July 7, 1999

Zachary Kiefer and Thomas Lovell, students from the Dayton area, are among more than 1,000 Washington fifth through eighth grade students who have been honored for their outstanding verbal and/or mathematical abilities. The students' academic skills were uncovered through the annual young students' talent search conducted nationally by the Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth at Johns Hopkins University and co-sponsored in Washington by the University of Washington's Halbert Robinson Center for the Study of Capable Youth.

Tumac Machinery, Inc. announced the AGCO Corporation has awarded them the Gleaner Combine Dealership for Columbia and Walla Walla Counties. In conjunction with this award, Tumac will be buying most of the assets of R & B Ag Machinery, Inc., nearly all of the employees of R&B will initially be working in the new Gleaner dealership in Dayton.

Emu, the weirdest looking of all wingless, featherless birds related to the Ostrich and Rhea, provide excellent meats and great oils for moisturizing your skin. Two area farms, the McQuarys and Startins, are raising these birds.

Fifty Years Ago

July 4, 1974

Airman Dale W. McHargue, Dayton High School, and son of Mr. and Mrs. Wendell McHargue, has graduated at Chanute AFB, Il., from the jet engine mechanic course conducted by the Air Training Command. McHargue will be assigned to Fairchild AFB in Spokane, for duty with a unit of the Strategic Air Command.

Dedication ceremonies will be held at newly constructed Central Ferry State Park. The $1.5 million recreation area was designed and constructed by the Walla Walla District, U.S, Army Corps of Engineers. The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission will operate the park under a 25-year lease.

A one-car accident 2.2 miles north Dayton on the N. Touchet River Road, claimed the life of Blaine A. White, 18, son of Mr. and Mrs. Richard White, and the driver, Gary E. White, 20, son of Mr. and Mrs. Dale White, was found approximately 100 feet from the vehicle with a possible broken neck and head injuries.

Roy and Gloria Mears are new owners of the former Anthony Store in Dayton and the store will now be known as Mears Department Store. The Mears moved to Dayton in 1957 when he assumed management of the Anthony store.

Seventy-Five Years Ago

July 7, 1949

Better markets and more use of Northwest wheat are the long-time goals of a new Tri-state cooperative research project, under the sponsorship of the agricultural extension service at W.S.C. The Oregon-Washington-Idaho project will trace northwest wheat from producer to processor to consumer, where it goes, who buys it, and what it's used for. The project will cover wheat going into both domestic and export trade.

The first checks in payment for land acquired by the government in connection with McNary Dam have been delivered to owners of property in Hover, Wash. area. A group of 26 check to be delivered in the near future for lands which will be inundated by the McNary reservoir which will consist of 532 acres having a total appraised value of $277,040.

Jean Larson, graduate of Dayton, left for Seattle where she will board an Army transport for Japan where she will work as a secretary with the civil service commission under the Department of the Army and expects to stay around two years.

Linda Alcorn, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ed Alcorn, recently won second place in a talent show sponsored by KUJ of Walla Walla. Linda is 11 years old and will be in sixth grade. She started her career during an amateur hour here at the Liberty Theatre.

One Hundred Years Ago

July, 1924

One Hundred Twenty-Five Years Ago

July 8, 1899

The RAILROAD DOWN THE SNAKE-Rapid Progress towards the Seven Devils, the Northwestern rushing work down the Snake River from Blake's Spur, near Huntington. About 700 men are now at work on the grades and forty-three miles will be ready for laying ties and steel, with the exception of the two tunnels.