125 years ago
April 29, 1892
The time of year has arrived when our citizens should take active measures toward beautifying the city by planting shade trees along the street in front of the residence property. Until this year the grading of the streets has seriously interfered with the cultivation of ornamental trees, but as the principal streets have now been graded there can be no reason why trees should not be planted.
If this is done the present season, within a very few years the residence portion of Montesano will present an attractive appearance, such as nothing else can give.
Such trees as maple, elm, or poplar grow rapidly, are easily cultivated, and are handsome in appearance.
The cost is so little when the advantages which result are considered that the number who cannot afford to plant the trees is small indeed.
Will not the residents of Montesano take steps at once to beautify our city and at the same time add attractiveness and value to their property.
100 years ago
April 27, 1917
Why is a city?
What makes a city?
Answer these two questions and you have the solution of the problem of how to further increase the prosperity of Montesano, how to make it a better and greater town—a more advantageous place in which to live.
The first—Why is a city?
A city is a city because of the concentration of people at one common point.
The second, what makes a city?
The attracting of trade to the common point where people have concentrated is what makes a city.
The more trade that is attracted—the more careful the folks within a city are to keep money at home, the greater a city becomes—the more prosperous it becomes.
Take a city like Chicago, for instance.
Not many years back, it was a prairie; now it is a metropolis. It attracts trade from everywhere—draws a nice little share from Montesano.
What it attracts, it holds. You don’t hear of folks who live in Chicago sending to Montesano for groceries, shoes, clothing and so on. They spend their money in their home town. They keep it at home that they may share the multiplied benefits it affords.
For illustration, what would be the result if Chicago folk poured the per capita amount into our city that Montesano pours into Chicago?
Our town would become a great, prosperous and wonderful city over night.
The majority of the citizens of Montesano would soon become millionaires.
75 years ago
April 30, 1942
On Monday, May 4, some 40 volunteer workers will initiate the war bond and war stamp pledge drive in Montesano and this vicinity.
Within one week, according to careful plans long in the making, everyone within this area will be given an opportunity to do his or her part, in a tangible way, to help the United States win the war.
“This drive comes to us an opportunity,” said Bert Cole, general chairman. “I know the response will be generous, because everyone knows how desperate is the need. Montesano already has given evidence of its willingness to help finance the war, and we are certain that it will redouble its efforts.”
The drive, centering here, will embrace the Wynooche valley, the Satsop valley, South Montesano, Melbourne, Brady, Alder Grove and neighboring districts.
Nothing will be sold in the drive, but everyone will be asked to sign a pledge—which is part of a national campaign—to purchase a definite amount of bonds or stamps every week or every month. Montesano will not be working to reach any particular qouta, but everyone who is able will be asked to set aside at least a tenth of his or her income for bond purchases.
50 years ago
April 27, 1967
Courageous Charles McCowan looks on himself as the man in an old Persian proverb who felt sorry for himself because he had no shoes—until he met a man who had no feet.
A remarkable Montesano resident, McCowan has had cancer for the past nine years. He has been in and out of hospitals all too-many times in that period. He has recently had to learn how to use an artificial larynx in order to talk at all.
Yet, McCowan has remained philosophical about his adversity.
“I was despondent after I lost my voice completely,” he admitted during a special interview the other night, “but then I came to realize there are so many others worse off. I could be blind or without a limb.”
A popular figure at the county courthouse, where he has served as custodian when not on the sick list during the last seven years, McCowan seemed the ideal person to contact as Cancer Control Month draws to a close. He has shown dramatically how the dreaded disease can be combatted, leaving the victor with another chance to lead a full, productive life.
25 years ago
April 23, 1992
Employees of Montesano’s largest private employer voted to unionize a week ago Wednesday.
By a vote of 62 to 22, employees at Marys River Lumber Company opted to make the International Woodworkers Association Local 3-2 their official bargaining agent. The election was sponsored by the National Labor Relations Board.
Federal law mandates a one week waiting period following such an election before certification is delivered.
Certification was expected to be delivered today.
Marys River acquired the south Montesano mill in 1979 after E.C. Miller left the site. Mill manager Norm Kyburz oversaw a complete retooling of the facility and it began to handle second growth Western Red Cedar in 1981.
10 years ago
April 26, 2007
In the face of two failed emergency medical services levies last year and another measure in February that didn’t pass, Grays Harbor Fire District 5 commissioners have voted to charge an availability fee to all citizens in the area to which it supplies ambulance service.
Until last week, only District 5 residents were asked to pick up the entire tab for the service area. Besides its own residents in Satsop, Porter, Bush Creek and rural Elma, that includes the cities of Elma and McCleary and Fire District 12 in rural McCleary, an area of about 240 square miles.
This year, $1,210,000 was budgeted for the area’s emergency medical and fire protection services. The revenue goes into a general coffer for both, though emergency medical services account for about 77 percent of the district’s calls, says Chief Randy Coggan.
Because, Coggan says, the district has been trying to “subsidize” the other three entities it provides service to, the ambulance service is nowhere near sustaining itself.
“No ambulance service is self-sustaining,” he says. But “you have to put the money you have where it does the best for the most people.”
At a special meeting April 18, District 5 Commissioners Eric Patton, John Fields and Mike Spencer unanimously voted to pass a resolution, effective immediately, asking the two cities and other fire district to help pay for its Medic One service. Patients throughout the area are also billed for their individual ambulance calls, with the same rate for all.
