Onalaska Wins State B Football Title
On Dec. 6, 1986, the Onalaska Loggers football team won the Class B Football championship in Kingbowl X with a 23-12 win over Liberty-Spangle.
“I’ve waited 15 years for something like this,” Logger coach Ed Simons said. “These kids have been super, I can’t say enough good things about them. That’s what makes this all the nicer, winning a state championship with a group like this.”
From the first day of practice in August, the team and the community knew a state championship was possible.
“A lot of pressure came from the now-famous sign in Ony which proclaimed the town the home of future state champions,” The Daily Chronicle wrote.
“The sign became prophetic with the Loggers’ victory, but it did put pressure on the team which they have been feeling ever since the sign was hung back in September.”
Farmers in Town for Fruit Trees
125 years ago, in 1886
The Lewis County Bee reported many farmers were in town to pick up fruit trees.
“Messrs. Motter and Holloway each received a huge shipment of trees,” the newspaper wrote. “It will not be many years until the fruit of this county will be in abundance. No where will all kinds of apples, pears, plumbs, prunes and cherries grow better than in Lewis county. A fruit cannery started on a small scale would encourage the horticulturist and be profitable to its owner. The trees do well and there are no ruinous tree pests. The fruit is of the finest flavor and is produced in enormous crops.”
Man Got His Own Goat
100 years ago, in 1911
An update was given on a burglary incident in Ethel.
“Our readers will recall the incident printed at the time how recently Minor McQuigg, treasurer of the Independent Telephone Company and living at Ethel, shot a hole through a window in his house in trying to bring down a supposed burglar,” The Chehalis Bee-Nugget reported.
“It was given out later that he had chased the man from the house through the shrubbery in the front yard, and a real good story was made of the incident by saying that McQuigg had money belonging to the company in his possession at the time.
“Whether it was McQuigg, himself, who started the story, or whether it was just the product of some lively imagination, is not known, but a neighbor of McQuigg, who visited Chehalis Monday stated that what McQuigg really shot was one of his own goats.”
‘Marihuana’ Movie Shown at Liberty Theatre
75 years ago, in 1936
The “Marihuana” movie played at the Liberty Theatre on Tower Avenue in Centralia.
“Daring Drug Expose,” the advertisement in The Centralia Daily Chronicle began.
“Shame, Horror, Despair. Weed with roots in hell. Smoke that gets in your eyes. What happens at Marihuana parties? Not recommended for children. Weird orgies, wild parties, unleashed passions.”
All seats were 35 cents each.
Yule Displays Damaged
50 years ago, in 1961
In two of Centralia’s parks, the recently displayed Christmas decorations were damaged.
“We’re putting them back up,” said Park Board Chairman Walter Wager. “But if they are again damaged, they will be removed. We do not have the money to keep replacing the material.” Wagner urged anyone seeing the decorations being destroyed to contact the police.
“A lighted Santa, reindeer and trees are in the downtown city park,” The Daily Chronicle wrote. “The figures were pulled up, antlers were broken from the reindeer and lights were stolen. At Fort Borst Park a 15-foot tall tree was lighted and visible from the nearby, four-lane Pacific highway.
“During the weekend vandals broke the top out of the tree and destroyed a number of the lights.”
The annual Christmas parades in Centralia and Chehalis were held, with Centralia featuring high school bands, and in Chehalis, Santa was in a sled pulled by white dogs.
Local Murders Reviewed
10 years ago, in 2001
With a suspect arrested in the slayings of four Green River victims in King County, Lewis County cold cases were being reviewed.
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office was checking into three cases of women, whose bodies were found in rural areas of the county. They were Monica Anderson, 32, Tacoma, who was found in the Chehalis River below the Galvin Road Bridge in 1984; Susan Krueger, either 41 or 42, found along Lacamas Creek near Drews Prairie between Toledo and Interstate 5 in 1985; and Mignon Hensley, 21, found one half mile east of Interstate 5 along U.S. Highway 12 in 1991.
Hull Is Doctor of the Year
Five years ago, in 2006
Providence Centralia Hospital named Dr. Larry Hall, Centralia, as its Doctor of the Year.
