This Week in Odessa History

100 years ago

From The Odessa Record

February 6, 1914

The Department of Agriculture issued a bulletin stating that the land of eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and northern Idaho was well-suited to adding beans as an additional crop besides cereal crop. 15 years experience showed that as good cereal crops can be grown following beans as after an ordinary summer fallow. The cultivation of the bean crops replaces the work necessary to care for the fallow and leaves the soil in excellenct condition for seeding winter wheat.

Beans do not seriously compete with wheat for labor and the two crops can be grown with practically the same equipment.

The arable lands of eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and northern Idaho have been devoted almost exclusively to growing wheat, oats and barley for more than 30 years. Because of the introduction of serious week pests soon after the land was brought into cultivation it was found unprofitable to grow a crop of grain each year. Many of the new settlers had come from the Willamette Valley, Oregon, where wheat and oats were grown by summer fallowing the land every second or third year. Hence, they naturally turned to this system of farming as a solution of their weed problem, and the growing of small grain bt the summer fallow method is still the general practice among the farmers of this region, Under this system of farming from one-third to one-half of the land lies idle each season.

75 years ago

From The Odessa Record

February 2, 1939

The German play “Fortunata” was presented at the high school as one of three plays to be given. The other two plays were “The Medicine Show” and “Goodnight Please”.

The Odessa commercial club again discussed plans to make a play ground to be used for high school and twon athletics such as baseball, football, track and field events. The school board declared its willingness to submit the matter of a bond issue to the voters, the proposition calling for a one-mill levy, to raise a $5000 fund over a three year period.

50 years ago

From The Odessa Record

February 6, 1964

Chief of Police, Ray Buxton Ray Buxton is spending the week at Tacoma, where his son, Mike, is graduating from the FBI police academy held at Fort Lewis.

12 members of the Odessa Junior Police, accompanied by Chief Ray Buxton and Lyle Raugust, were guests of the Spokane police department on Tuesday of last week. The Odessa boys toured the entire city jail, including the women;s division and the padded cells. Thy saw the lie detector. From the jail they went to KREM-TV to appear on the Telescope program with Betty Dennis.

After lunch they went to the police academy, where Lt. Berg showed the different courses of the shooting range, and how bullets were loaded. Making the trip were Dan Haugen, Tom Stehr, Earl McGuire, Rusty Kruckenber, Jack Ramm, Milo Lyons, Stan and Steve Lightbody, Jon and Jerry Raugust, Billy Greenwalt and Stan Weber.

25 years ago

From The Odessa Record February 2, 1989

At a meeting about the financial needs of the Odessa Memorial Hospital, Mike O’Halloran pressed for passage of a $395,000 levy to get the hospital up to speed. He said in order to keep the hospital in good repair and plan for the future, there would probably be similar levies for the next two years, also. He said since the community had had no doctor for a period of time, people had become accustomed to getting their medical needs met out of town, but in order to avoid huge levies in the future he urged the community to use the local hospital.

10 years ago

From The Odessa Record February 5, 2004

A dynamite explosion at the gravel pit shook the town. The dynamite was set in order to make gravel for highways. 35,000 pounds of explosives blasted through rock across highway 21 from the Odessa Industrial Park.

Copenhaver Construction, Inc. of Creston was in charge of the blast. The firm subcontracts for the drilling and shooting for the dynamiting.