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In this installment of A Look Back in Time, the Saturday, March 28, 1936, edition of The Chronicle featured a story about world-renowned billiards player Charles Seaback coming to the Centralia Elks Club lodge to give free billiards lessons along with a two-hour exhibition with trick shots.
Upgrades allowing for night flights had been completed at the “Chehalis county-city airport” by Centralia resident Norton Siep, and local flight instructors also reported an increase in new students going for private pilot’s licenses, according to the Thursday, March 28, 1946, edition of The Chronicle.
And in the Wednesday, March 28, 1956, edition of The Chronicle, it was reported that retired Union Pacific Railroad engineer Clarence Dye was honored by his former coworkers and family in Centralia.
The Sunday, March 28, 1976, edition of The Chronicle was not in the archives, so stories from the Saturday, March 27, 1976, edition have been featured instead.
A Look Back in Time is compiled using Chronicle archives stored at the Lewis County Historical Museum — located at 599 NW Front St. in Chehalis — along with digital archives on newspapers.com.
Saturday, March 28, 1936
• World-renowned billiards player Charles Seaback was set to visit the Centralia Elks Club lodge on Tuesday to give free billiards lessons along with a two-hour exhibition, The Chronicle reported. “The salient reason Seaback’s visit to Centralia should not be passed by billiard fans is because the New Yorker is regarded in billiard circles as one of the best instructors in the land. Seaback comes here in connection with the third annual national ‘Better Billiards’ program sponsored by the National Billiard Association of America, and during his two-hour engagement here will demonstrate and teach the fundamentals of the game to novices and mediocre players in addition to a special exhibition of fancy shots. Women, as well as men, are invited to take advantage of this offer.” Originally born in Syria, Seaback would go on to win the New England and Canadian billiards championships, along with competing in the National Billiard Association’s championship, with his best finish being fourth place in 1935. During a 1919 national tournament in Philadelphia, he set a new high run record of 68, and also defeated then-world champion Thomas Hueston in a special match held in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1908, according to his 1947 obituary in The New York Times.
• The Chronicle featured an Associated Press story about the end of the German 1936 election campaign, which was marked by a speech from German Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolph Hitler delivering an address in Cologne, Germany, justifying his remilitarization of the Rhineland. “With church bells tolling through the Reich, Adolph Hitler, surrounded by all his cabinet ministers, turned to Cologne today to close the Nazi election campaign with a last spirited appeal for ‘honor, freedom and peace’ … Enthusiasm ran high here in the Rhineland, to which Hitler sent his troops March 7, in defiance of the Locarno Pact and Versailles Treaty — the action which Der Füehrer sought all Germany to approve by its vote in tomorrow’s Reichstag election. As with yesterday’s speech at Essen, in the heart of Germany’s steel producing center, a nationwide network of loud speakers was arranged to make Hitler’s Cologne address echo into the most remote corners of the country. Operas and theaters were closed. Nazi party formations rallied at meeting halls and public places. Torchlight processions tonight will signal the close of the campaign. In the Rhineland, pillars were erected and flagpoles were virtually buried under tens of thousands of Swastika flags … The number of Germans entitled to vote, more than 42,000,000 in 1934, remained at its old level. This year, however, Jews must refrain from voting. On the other hand the voting age limit had been reduced from 21 years to 20 years. A total of 42,558,322 valid ballots were cast in the 1935 plebiscite divided as follows: for Hitler, 38,279,514; against Hitler, 4,278,808. Invalid ballots totaled 871,056.”
• A portable, electric sewing machine was listed for sale in The Chronicle’s classifieds for $20.
Thursday, March 28, 1946
• Local flying instructors announced night flying was now taking place in Chehalis, and 18 students had successfully flown their first solo flights since the beginning of the year, and another 44 were in pre-solo flight training at the “Chehalis county-city airport,” to get their private pilot’s licences in the near future, The Chronicle reported. “With the arrival of new students daily, the community is becoming air-minded … The number of private licenses has increased to 16, with 11 privately owned planes on the field. Two new ships were recently purchased by the flying instructors, one a Cub and the other an Aeronca, both being two-place tandems, powered by 65-horse power motors. Night flying has been inaugurated at the field by Norton Seip, of Centralia. Kerosene lanterns were placed at intervals along the runway for landing and take-off identification of the strip. The Seip plane is equipped with navigation lights, and was used for the first night flying off the field.”
• Members of the Centralia City Commission (Council) unanimously chose Otto Rucker to be the Hub City’s new chief of police, The Chronicle reported. “The new chief will officially take over his duties on April 1, when the resignation of the retiring head of the police department, Milton Jastram, becomes effective. Rucker has been a member of the Centralia department the past 13 years, starting in 1933 as a traffic officer. He has been a resident of the city more than 25 years. His duties as chief of police are not new to him. He served as (interim) head of the force for more than two years, from May, 1943, to September, 1945, during the time Jastram was in the Navy.”
• A six-room “modern home” with an electric water system on 40 acres of “rich land near Ajlune” was listed for sale in The Chronicle’s classifieds for $5,000.
Wednesday, March 28, 1956
• Retired Union Pacific Railroad engineer Clarence Dye was honored by his former coworkers at a Centralia International Order of the Odd Fellows (IOOF) hall reception the previous week, The Chronicle reported. “Mrs. Clara Dye and their three daughters … were hostesses for the affair, attended by fellow railroad employees. To carry out the theme on the refreshment table, miniature trains, dating back to the first steam engine up to the new streamliner, were placed about the tiered cake, inscribed with the honoree’s name and topped by a miniature conductor … At the close of the afternoon, Mr. Dye was presented with a sum of money and a gift from his railroad friends by Harold Hamilton. Mr. Dye thanked them for the gift, telling his former fellow employees that he would, ‘now stay in the by-pass and watch them all go by.’”
• East Lewis County residents near Randle and Packwood were being warned of possible spring flooding after “record” winter snowfall left a lot of snowpack to melt, The Chronicle reported. “A check in the higher elevations above Randle and Packwood reveals there is a record amount of the white stuff piled up, awaiting warm spring rains or prolonged sunny weather before spilling into rivers to swell streams and push them over flatlands. Fritz Morrison, (U.S. National Forest Service) Packwood District ranger, said Tuesday the snowfall in the Packwood forest district set a record of over 14 feet last year, and ‘it’s already over 17 feet in depth this year.’” Near Randle, the snowpack above 5,000 feet elevation was reported at between 15 and 20 feet, “about twice the normal snow depth,” Morrison added. The snowpack depth was the same around Mount St. Helens as it was near Randle. “Ranger Morrison summed up the situation this way; ‘If the right weather conditions prevail, we could get a normal run-off like any ordinary year. Last week, for example, plenty of snow melted in the rain and ran down the rivers without any appreciable rise. If we get plenty of warm weather and warm rain, this would be a very bad freshet. It depends entirely on the weather in the next few weeks.’”
• A two-bedroom home with a guest house and “lots of fruit” on four and a half acres of land within Chehalis city limits was listed for sale in The Chronicle’s classifieds for $6,500. A three-bedroom home in Littell was listed for rent for $45 a month.
Monday, March 28, 1966
• A local deputy fire marshal visited a tree farm near Toledo that morning to begin investigating the cause of a “series of six incendiary fires” set on the farm and an adjacent farm on Saturday, The Chronicle reported. “Jack Radnich, Chehalis district administrator of the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), said a DNR detector plane spotted the first blaze at 3:40 p.m., on the 320 acre tree farm of Francis Holycross, eight miles east of Toledo. Radnich said five of the fires were set in young growth Douglas fir trees and one a mile away on another property. About five acres of young growth trees planted six years ago were severely damaged, Radnich said, as investigation continued Monday.”
• The Chronicle featured an Associated Press story about more UFO sightings being reported in Ohio and Wisconsin after “weird, blinking lights” first appeared two weeks earlier above the skies of south Michigan. “As before, there was no full explanation. So far, the only authoritative analysis has been the swamp gas theory advanced Friday by a Northwestern University astrophysicist concerning two sightings in southern Michigan. The scientist, Dr. Josef Allen Hynek, who also is a (U.S.) Air Force special consultant, has gotten arguments from those who reported seeing the mysterious flying objects. Ohio Highway Patrolman Richard D. Landversicht said Sunday he saw a strange light approaching Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton. He reportedly photographed the lights and the Air Force develops the films today. Wright Patterson is the home of the National Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Office, called Project Blue Book … In the Toledo area Sunday night a member of the Sylvania Fire Department furnished a local radio station with a detailed account of his observations. Equipped with binoculars, the observer described four objects he said changed color from red to green to white — ‘They kind of look like a star when you first see them, but they blink on and off,’ he said. Hynek said at his Evanston, Illinois, home Sunday that his conclusion that two Michigan sightings probably were swamp gas applied only to the sighting reported in the Hillsdale and Dexter area. Several observers said they felt the explanation was inadequate. The lights over Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio were described as ‘glowing green,’ ‘red and white,’ ‘bright, reddish orange,’ and traveling at a high rate of speed.”
• A three-bedroom home with a “new large barn,” a roping arena with creek access and riding trails on 40 acres of land three miles from Centralia was listed for sale in The Chronicle’s classifieds for $36,000. A three-bedroom home in Chehalis was listed for rent for $75 a month.
Saturday, March 27, 1976
• Despite an attempt in January to preserve it and make it a historical landmark, plans to demolish a covered railroad bridge near Doty were in the works, The Chronicle reported. “Efforts to organize a campaign to save the bridge from demolition apparently have failed. The west approach to the bridge, over the Chehalis River … was torn out this week, and the bridge itself will begin coming down in about another week. The 60-year-old wooden span … is believed to be the last remaining covered railroad bridge in Washington state. A suggestion that the bridge be dismantled, moved and re-erected on the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds has proved impractical from a financial standpoint. A and K Railroad Materials Co., which owns the bridge, plans to salvage most of the bridge materials.”
• Tenino High School drama students were preparing to perform “1776,” a musical about the signing of the Declaration of Independence, over the weekend of April 8 that year, The Chronicle reported. “The play, ‘1776,’ will be presented in the high school multi-purpose room, with curtain time at 7:30 each of the three nights. There will also be a matinee performance Sunday, April 11, at 2 p.m. Jean Cothary is director of the play, which features a cast of 27. The Tenino High School band, under the direction of Gary Calkins, will provide music.”
• A remodeled two-bedroom home with a “small creek partially bordering property” on “over ½ acre” of land in Chehalis was listed for sale in The Chronicle’s classifieds for $21,500. A furnished two-bedroom apartment in downtown Centralia was listed for rent for $150 a month.
