From the Dayton Chronicle archives

Ten Years Ago

December 25, 2013

Permitting has begun for a straw pulping mill along the Snake River near Lyons Ferry Bridge by Columbia Pulp, LLC, with production anticipated to begin in 2015. The company has acquired a 450-acre site south of Highway 261 near Lyons Ferry elevator, where the sound of motorcycle engines once echoed off the bluffs known as Eagles Roost.

A Columbia County Transfer Station employee discovered the body of 17-year-old Cody J. Snider of Dayton lying on the ground just inside the fence. It appears the juvenile fell approximately 150 feet from the top of the cliff above the transfer station.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

December 23, 1998

Residents in the area of Mustard and Fifth streets showed up at a public hearing during the regular City Council meeting to complain that a proposed 26-unit apartment complex will create traffic problems in the area. Knoblock Housing Limited Partnership, a development firm from Tacoma, intends to build a three-story, three-building complex, with low- to moderate-income housing, but will not be HUD funded.

Project Timothy distributed 26 boxes of food to 42 adults and 62 children, according to Sofie Arebalos. Volunteers delivered the boxes of food to several areas in the community including Starbuck, fruit baskets were donated by Deb Laughery, IGA, and the Rose Street Safeway. Project Timothy has winter wear, including new coats and shoes for kids for Christmas.

Before gasoline, before propane, before electricity, coal was king. Now the king is dead. On December 14, the last train car load of coal was delivered to Dayton and was unloaded at City Lumber and Coal Yard, which has been selling coal since 1910. A Community Study conducted in 1954 listed that 21.2 percent of occupied dwelling units in Dayton were heated by coal and 3.9 percent used coal as their cooking fuel. Few kids today would know what was meant by a stoker or a clinker. Coal once powered America's industries and the great locomotives as well as powering our ships at sea.

Fifty Years Ago

December 27, 1973

Two students from Dayton High School have been selected for the 1974 All-State Chorus. Charlotte Eaton will be singing alto and Keith Brodhead will be singing bass. Both sophomores will participate in the All-State Chorus at the Washington Music Educator's Association Convention in Richland. The All-State Chorus is made up of 400 of the state's finest musicians. Both are members of the Dayton High School Chorus and Trouveres.

Two area winners in the annual Western International Forest and Range Fire Prevention Poster Contest, which included the eleven western states and two Canadian provinces, were announced following judging in San Jose, Calif. The winners are Jennie Connor, third-place intermediate, Waitsburg Elementary School, and Mary Knopf, first-place junior, Garrison Junior High, Walla Walla.

Columbia County's winner of the 1973 First Baby Contest is Chad Dustin Gasaway, son of Mr. and Mrs. David Gasaway. The Gassaway's are co-owners in the Stitching Post, and Gasaway farms with his grandfather and uncle.

Seventy-Five Years Ago

December 23, 1948

The board of directors of the J. C. Penney Company have authorized a special payment of an amount equal to two weeks' pay, for all full-time associates who have been employed for the full year of 1948 and on a proportionate basis for extra and part-time associates and for those employed less than a year. More than 50,000 Penney associates all over the United States will participate in this payment.

The remains of Pfc. Roy R. McKinley, 24, son of Mr. and Mrs. Roy G. McKinley of Everett, were returned from France, being killed in action, for burial at home. The McKinley's lived in Dayton and Roy worked in the local post office, and their son was born in Dayton. Interment was made in the Evergreen Cemetery at Everett and members of the American Legion were pallbearers, attending the services were Mr. and Mrs. Ralph McKinley of Pomeroy.

One Hundred Years Ago

December, 1923

No information available.

One Hundred Twenty-Five Years Ago

December 24, 1898

Mrs. Rose's residence on West Main Street and other places where there recently was diphtheria have all been thoroughly fumigated and all danger of the spread of the disease has passed.