75 years ago

May 22, 1942

Cecil B. DeMille’s road show picture, “Reap the Wild Wind,” is announced for a limited engagement at the D&R theater, starting tomorrow.

Based on the colorful Saturday Evening Post novel, the story has the Florida reefs as the setting for its spectacular drama of sailing ships, pirates and the romantic Charleston of yesterday. It has been produced on an epic scale, in a new technicolor, with John Wayne, Ray Milland, Paulette Goddard, Raymond Massey, Lynne Overman, Robert Preston and Susan Hayward heading the cast of thousands.

50 years ago

May 22, 1967

Myrtle Street is merely a strip of asphalt, servng as the boundary between Aberdeen and Hoquiam but to some it might as well be an impenetrable mountain chain.

After individuals in Centralia and Chehalis announced plans last week to form an advisory committee to study merger plans for those two cities, leading citizens in Aberdeen and Hoquiam outlined what they considered the greatest obstacles for such a move on Grays Harbor.

Jack Burtch: “Each city has its own traditions, and it is hard to throw over something like this.”

Omar Parker: “It will take too must zest out of living here, if we merge, because progress grows out of rivalry.”

Joe Randich: “The people in Aberdeen seem to think that merger would be a snap if we Hoquiamites were not so bullheaded.”

25 years ago

May 22, 1992

• A wing of the Moclips Motel burned to the ground this morning as firefighters struggled to battle the blaze while short on water.

“It’s a disaster,” said a distraught Cherise Jensen, who owns and operates the motel with her husband, Morris. “We have what we have on our backs, and that’s it.” The destruction took the Jensenes living quarters and four rooms.

Jensen estimated the loss at about $400,000.

Volunteer firefighters for the Moclips department were thwarted in their attempts to stop the fire when the water supply from the community’s only fire hydrant suddenly went dry.

• The Golden Dragon Cafe II in Aberdeen sustained $10,000 damage in a fire early this morning.

The Fire Department was called to the restaurant at 212 E. Wishkah at 12:04 a.m. after Aberdeen Police discovered the fire developing in the smoke exhaust system.

Residents of the neighboring Scotsman Apartments had to evacuate the building temporarily in case the fire spread, Battalion Chief Bob Phillips said.

Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom