This Week in Odessa History

They were harvesting archaic varieties such as White Amber and Bluestem, and they were getting 70 cents a bushel for it.

It was a time of custom threshing and 20-horse teams to pull the growing number of combines making their appearance in the area. Despite the many hardships, farm operation might have been simpler then than it is today.

The wheat was planted, and growers waited to see what came up. There were no fertilizers or chemical weed killer. No irrigation. About 12 to 16 bushels was the normal yield for a wheat crop.

That was why there was jubilation in the Odessa area in the last week of July, 1913 as harvest got under way. Growers were reporting yields of 38½ bushels per acre and more-- the best crop ever recorded up to that time.

In the issue of July 25, 1913, The Odessa Record reported:

Optimists hereabout predicted a few weeks ago that Odessa would this year have the largest crop it ever knew, and their predictions have turned out to be true, and even more than that, for some of the yields which farmers hereabouts are reporting, are beyond the fondest hopes of our best optimists. The crop is surely a humdinger, not only in the quantity that is being harvested, but in the general quality of the grain.

Local grain men state that the quality of samples which they have seen this year is far above the usual average, some grain testing as high as 63. It is some of the heaviest wheat ever handled here. A considerable quantity of the grain has been contracted for, and the price paid this week for Bluestem has been right around 70 cents. White Amber is being contracted at about a cent under Bluestem.

Reports from the field indicate big yields, in some cases exceeding all former high yield marks on large acreages. George Heimbigner completed harvesting a half-section this week, which averaged over 39 bushels per acre on the entire field. John Schmidt, living 14 miles southwest of town, got 1,200 sacks from 70 acres, finishing his field last Monday evening. This would be an average of 38½ bushels per acre. In one day’s run, Mr. Schmidt threshed 450 sacks with a 14-foot combine.

The spring grain is now ripe enough to cut and some of the farmers will start on that Monday. It was thought that this grain would produce better than the fall wheat this year, but the hot weather last Saturday and Sunday gave some of the spring grain, especially to the north of Odessa, a setback.

Several threshing outfits now are at work threshing the headed grain, but the combine harvester has proved such a success and there are so many of them in the country this year that the grain was nearly all saved before the winds shelled it. With the promise of more combines to come within the next few years, our farmers will have little to fear from the winds, and the yield here, such as it was this year, will become general instead of exceptional, as it has been heretofore.

100 Years Ago

From The Odessa Record

July 19, 1912

According to the report of H.B. Dewey, state superintendent of public instruction, it is shown that grammar was the chief stumbling block for the eighth grade pupils of the state who took the examinations last May for entrance to the high school.

The reports from all the counties have not been received but as far as reported a total of 1,829 passed this year. This is a decrease of 279 compared with 1911 when 2,099 took the examination successfully.

75 Years Ago

From The Odessa Record

July 29,1937

Harvest is starting in general this week.

Early starters found that weeds were giving them trouble, but that wheat was plentiful.

Ranchers are enthused over the harvest, finding that their crops, despite the erratic conditions of the summer, are well up to normal.

Since the advent of power machinery farmers of the region have been gradually discontinuing the use of sacks and handling their wheat in bulk, using steel tuck tanks to carry their crops direct from harvester to the warehouse.

The demand for tanks has made a rush business for local machine shops this season, and to date 37 such tanks have been made and sold here. The average size of such tanks is about 150 bushels. Williams garage has turned out 16 of these tanks, Birges garage 21.

25 Years Ago

From The Odessa Record

July 16, 1987

Lincoln County commissioner Andy Rustemeyer said efforts being made to keep countywide communities aware of recent developments about the proposed Superconducting Super Collider.

Six community meetings during the month of July are designed to bring further information about the project.

In a reader search sponsored by the Bellevue Journal-American just before Independence Day, Patsy Hoefel, former Odessa resident now living in Redmond, was among those receiving nominations and newspaper mention.

Of Hoefel, the nominating letter said, “...my daughter’s first-grade teacher at Carnation is my idea of a patriot. She begins the year teaching all sorts of American tunes including You’re A Grand Old Flag and God Bless America... Each month they prepare a program and present it at the Carnation senior Center, (Hoefel) capped the year with a great old American tradition-- the melodrama... I’m sure along the way, the kids osmosed pride in their country.

10 Years Ago

From The Odessa Record

July 18, 2002

The Oom Pas & Mas German band have produced their first CD entitled Oom Pa’s and Ma’s Eins Zwei G’suffa. It features 23 songs and photos of several local personalities and Deutschesfest activities.

Odessa’s downtown beautification and First Avenue enhancement program was underway just one week after the Town Council approved an ordinance creating a local improvement district which makes the program possible.

The project is due for completion by September 19.

Dr. Gian (John) Giuliani, most recently of Grand Coulee, was in Odessa to see up front what clinical practice is like in Odessa and how emergency and admitting services work.

Dr. Giuliani spent a week at OMHC on a recruitment visit.