75 years ago

July 11, 1944

A $750,000 army ordnance contract for the production of artillery shell parts has been awarded the Lamb-Grays Harbor company, it was learned today.

The new contract is for the manufacturing of “boosters,” additional explosives between the priming charge and main charge of an artillery shell.

Work on the new contract, doubling the company’s present payroll of 275 men and women, will get under way as soon as machinery can be installed, probably by September, Frank Lamb, president of the company and today.

Approximately 300 additional jobs to be opened by the new contract at the Lamb-Grays Harbor company will go mostly to women, Lamb said.

July 12, 1944

Civilians will probably continue to get plenty of cigarettes — but they will have increasing difficulty in obtaining popular brands, authoritative government sources asserted today.

With the armed forces holding a priority, it is anticipated that the civilian cigarette supply may become comparable to the cigar situation. Civilians can always get a certain number of cigars, but often fail to find their old favorites on the counter.

The cigarette industry’s voluntary rationing system has affected Camels, Philip Morris, Old Golds, Lucky Strikes and Chesterfields.

50 years ago

July 11, 1969

Grays Harbor College will receive $1.5 million in state funds for capital construction projects including a vocational-technical facility, a new physical sciences wing and a counseling center.

“I’m very pleased with the allocation,” said Dr. Smith, “particularly with the vocational-technical facility we have planned.” Dr. Smith explained that the new structure will include machine shops, an auto mechanics area and a drafting department along with body-fender and welding areas.

July 12, 1969

Saturday, no newspaper published

25 years ago

July 11, 1994

As a kid, Deanna Brooks traveled through Yakima on her stepfather’s logging truck.

As a teenager on the edge of adulthood, she’s going back to Yakima and trucks, but this time she is not just passing through.

On July 12, Brooks boards a bus for Fort Simco, a 224-person Job Corps base in the Yakima Valley. The Corps is a federally funded program with a 30-year history of providing futures largely for kids with forgettable pasts.

While the Corps is not a military operation, Brooks, 17, knows it will be a difficult adventure, especially for a woman who wants to crack the traditionally male market of big rig truck drivers.

“I’ve wanted to be a truck driver since I was a little kid, but everybody tells me I’m too short,” said the petite Brooks, a former Harbor High School student. For the past two weeks, she said “all I’ve been hearing is ‘You women are just taking over our jobs.’ But I don’t care. We have to make a living too.”

July 12, 1994

A state law prohibiting people from openly carrying guns no longer applies to unincorporated Grays Harbor County.

After a handful of local gun owners blasted it as “another infringement on our Second Amendment rights,” the County Commissioners exempted the county from the law.

“It’s very unfair, unjust and completely un-American as far as I’m concerned,” said Chuck Dragoo of Hoquiam, vice president of the Grays Harbor Rifle and Pistol Club.

Commissioner Dick Dixon of Aberdeen said the regulation is designed for urban areas and is untenable on the Harbor, where many hunters travel with their rifles mounted on gun racks.

Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom