Yesterdays:Bush visits the Flathead
Hungry Horse News | UPDATED 3 hours, 23 minutes AGO
Gail Preston, Linda Drsiscoll and Geraldine Gregg on a horse called "Paint" in the lawn of the Hungry Horse News on July 8, 1956. (Mel Ruder photo)
70 years ago
July 8, 1956
Opposition to a slew of proposed area dams was mounting. Glacier National Park, for example, was opposed to a dam on the North Fork of the Flathead River. Others were opposed to a dam on the Swan River.
60 years ago
July 8, 1966
The Miss Lake McDonald pageant was slated for July 20. It was a beauty pageant of sorts for female Lake McDonald Lodge employees, most of which back then were college students from various U.S. universities.
50 years ago
July 8, 1976
The front page of the newspaper was all photos, including one of the Rainbow Family at the U.S.-Canada border celebrating the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park on July 4. About 250 hippies attended the ceremony.
40 years ago
July 9, 1986
Vice President George Bush would be visiting the Flathead Valley on the campaign trail. A grizzly bear bit Glenn Solomon, 28, of Durham, North Carolina. Solomon and another guy were going to climb Mount Siyeh when they ran into a grizzly bear about 4 feet away. It bit and scratched him several times and he needed about 80 stitches. A vote to split West glacier School from Columbia Falls was approved by voters.
30 years ago
July 11, 1986
A black bear wandered into the employee showers at Swiftcurrent Motel, scaring the daylights out of a bather inside. “I was soaped up and looked around and there was this huge bear in the shower with me,” Brian Bachman noted. Brian ran out of the stall and the bear ran out the front door.
20 years ago
July 6, 2006
More than 1,700 scenic overflights went over Glacier National Park on average, even though the Park Service had adopted a plan to phase them out.
In a few years, they will actually be phased out entirely, though it took almost 20 years to get rid of helicopter overflights.
Sen. Max Baucus got a bill through that put $50 million to start rehabilitating the Going-to-the-Sun Road back on track.
10 years ago
July 6, 2016
The community was mourning the loss of Brad Treat, who was killed by a grizzly bear while mountain biking while off-duty in West Glacier. A later investigation found Treat accidentally ran into the bear on his bicycle. The bear was never found.
Columbia Falls Police Chief Dave Perry was fired. Earlier in the year an inmate in the city jail escaped after he claimed there was a spider in the toilet. The man was able to run out of the jail.