100 years ago

• A “tragic and fatal” accident occurred in Coupeville when Frederick Miller, age 5, was thrown from his toy wagon under the feet of a team of horses.
• Parents of children attending School District 23 gathered at the Mabana Hotel to discuss dividing the district.
• Oak Harbor’s first city council, mayor and treasurer were elected. Their predecessors in office had been appointed by the board of county commissioners. They were Jerome Ely, mayor; and J.M. Pratt, treasurer. Pratt was cashier at the Oak Harbor State Bank.
• An ad for Oak Harbor State Bank proclaimed: “If a person can deny himself and save his money, he not only increases his own self-respect but the respect of his neighbors for him.”
• Oak Harbor’s Independent Order of Odd Fellows in a lengthy resolution urged the state’s U.S. senators to “take some definite action that will best promote and finally bring about a permanent peace among the nations of the earth.” The U.S. entered WWI about six months later, on April 6, 1917.
• Coupeville elected three councilmen and a treasurer. No one ran for mayor, so none was elected. Only 13 votes in total were cast. In Langley, “Mr. Benton” was elected mayor. Benton’s first name was not provided — he was identified only as “the newspaper man.”
• Six seven-week-old pigs were offered for sale at $3 each. “Inquire at News office,” the notice read.

75 years ago

• Another 49 Island County draft registrants were sent questionnaires to be classified. A first group of 68 had already received questionnaires. About 27 men were thought likely to be drafted during the year.
• Herbert Dykers, an early Dutch settler, died. He had come to Oak Harbor at age 24. He bought the Buzby homestead in 1901 and lived there until his death.
• Though prohibition had ended in 1933, Oak Harbor’s Women’s Christian Temperance Union at a meeting discussed an article in which the Vichy government attributed the fall of France to soldiers’ use of liquor “during the inactive months of the past winter.”
• County agent L.N. Freimann declared that “peaches will grow very well in Island County” if the right varieties are planted and the leaves are sprayed to prevent curl.
• Oliver Winfield Crockett died at age 66. His parents had crossed the plains in 1850 with their parents and settled in Coupeville. At one time, Crockett Prairie was owned entirely by members of his family.
• About 30 local men were employed improving Oak Harbor’s sewers. The project, which had been temporarily suspended for lack of funds, set out to lay two miles of pipe, at a cost of about $27,000.

50 years ago

• Santa was to ride in a fire truck in Oak Harbor’s Christmas parade. He was scheduled to make his knee available to children for six hours. Also in the parade were the mayor, Miss NAS Whidbey, and the Oak Harbor High School homecoming queen and her court.
• The hospital commissioner and members of an advisory council were working to establish a hospital on Whidbey Island. The island had a population of 19,000 people at that time, swelling to 25,000 during the summers.
• Property taxes were increased to 25 percent of assessed value, from 20 percent.
• The editor of the Whidbey Island Record for ten years, Ace Comstock, left that position to supervise publication of the Silverdale Breeze, East Bremerton News and Port Orchard Independent.
• School Superintendent Wilbur Gilbert predicted a “huge growth” in school population — to 5,000 students, from 3,600. A bond issue to finance building new schools would most likely be necessary, he said.

25 years ago

• As many as 300 elementary-school students were set to attend class in a middle-school building because of overcrowding.
• A Navy A-6E plane flew into the South China Sea, killing two crewmen. The plane and crew had been based at NAS Whidbey Island. The plane apparently exploded when it hit the water.
• Oak Harbor’s beach was set to re-open after possible sewage contamination following a hard rainstorm.
• Oak Harbor resident Diane Moeller spoke out against Pan Am Airlines, which she said forced her out of a job as a flight attendant for being five pounds overweight. “I starved myself for four years but couldn’t lose a pound because of all the stress,” she said.
• The 51 Coupeville owners of historic property won a new incentive to restore their buildings. The town council granted approved restorations a ten-year moratorium on valuation increases.
• Members of the White Aryan Resistance met at a South Whidbey State Park campsite. They held a vigil to commemorate the death of Robert Mathews, a neo-Nazi who died in a shoot-out with FBI agents in Greenbank on Dec. 8, 1984. No incidents were reported.