75 years ago
October 5, 1942
William “Bill” Jones left today for Seattle to become a radio technician in the navy.
A graduate of Weatherwax high school and Grays Harbor junior college, Jones recently qualified for service as a radio technician third class, and will be sent to Chicago to naval training school to prepare for a higher rating.
He is the son of B.B. Jones, Aberdeen commercial photographer.
October 6, 1942
A $1,500,000 contract to manufacture multi-piece line shafts for Kaiser ships has been signed by the Lamb-Grays Harbor company, Hoquiam machine works, George E. Lamb, executive manager, announced today.
Work on the big order will start as soon as the firm completes setting up a new assembly line of lathes and other equipment, now going forward as rapidly as possible.
Lamb says the firm now employs some 75 men, and this number would be doubled or more when the shops get into full production on the ship shafts.
50 years ago
October 5, 1967
Carl and Mabel Schafer love to collect interesting things on their unique 1,600-acre ranch up the Satsop valley.
Part of the ranch is the old John Schafer homestead where Carl’s grandparents settled in pioneer days.
They have an old steam donkey on heavy skids, for example, and a real locomotive that served long in the woods before it went to work for the Port of Grays Harbor. They have an old street clock, ornately handsome, that told the time in downtown Seattle for many decades.
And now they have a covered bridge — Grays Harbor’s first and only covered bridge — and they had it built on the property.
It was painfully constructed by Oscar Hegberg of Aberdeen, head carpenter, who has produced other handsome structures on their property. Every stick of wood in the span, which is 16 feet wide and 72 feet long, is cedar from massive timbers fabricated by the E.D. Miller Cedar Lumber Company to small boards.
At the moment the bridge crosses dry land, but a dam across a creek below will be raised, and then the water will back up under the bridge into a winding, wooded ravine.
October 6, 1967
It’s sleek, it’s handsome, it’s comfortable and it’s utilitarian.
It’s the new 40-passenger bus recently put into service at Grays Harbor College. The $22,000 bus already has carried the football team to Bremerton and Pasco and will be used regularly to transport students from the Elma-Montesano area. It will be utilized for field trips as well as athletic events. A literature class is currently planning a trip to see a theater production in Seattle.
25 years ago
October 5, 1992
The Grays Harbor Chamber of Commerce, representing Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Cosmopolis and Grays Harbor County is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
The opening of the celebration is set for 3 p.m. Tuesday on center stage at the SouthShore Mall.
Two display cases filled with items depicting “The Chamber Story” will be unveiled by past Chamber President Larry Westfall of Interstate Bank of Hoquiam and incoming President Scott Best of Best Heating and Air Conditioning of Aberdeen. A seven-minute video on the visit to the Port of Grays Harbor by the Viking Sun cruise ship also will be played continuously.
October 6, 1992
Years of neglect are beginning to show on the Hoquiam Aquatic Center and Olympic Stadium with no cheap fix in sight, the parks director told the City Council Monday night.
Thousands of dollars in repairs are needed because of little or poor maintenance on the facilities since they were renovated in the 1980s Tanya Bowers said.
Bowers presented more than $35,000 in estimated costs to replace water heaters and pumps at the pool, paint the building, re-grout and repair or replace other mechanical equipment. That figure doesn’t include repairs to rusting support columns and other work on the building itself recommended by structural engineers.
Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom
