100 years ago (1916 — Oak Harbor News)
Work was progressing on the Chaco, a freighter being built by the Island Transportation Company. But it remained unclear whether the new boat would work the Langley-Everett or the Clinton-Mukilteo route. The Langley Commercial Club by a vote endorsed an auto ferry service between Langley and Everett.
Improvements at Brown’s Point summer resort were estimated at $7,100. It was to be a new townsite with a private dock.
C.S. Wolfsen enlarged his acorn flour mill by adding a power-driven receiving separator.
The County Declamatory Contest was scheduled to take place in Coupeville.
“W. M. Brown has been attacked this week by his old enemy Rheumatism,” a page-one item reported in its entirety.
Fourteen pounds of sugar cost $1 with the purchase of $4 in other goods at The Cash Store.
75 years ago (1941 — Farm Bureau News)
The Keystone – Port Townsend ferry launched operation May 6, with 10 round trips daily. The Mukilteo – Columbia Beach run had 36 round trips daily.
The second annual music festival in Langley featured several glee clubs and choruses.
The “We Women” column included a 14-item quiz on home safety. Questions included “Are matches kept in a metal container? Before retiring at night, do you have the furniture in the usual place, so it will not be stumbled over in the dark? Are you careful in the storage of kerosene and use of kerosene stoves?”
50 years ago (1966 — Whidbey News-Times)
A barge filled with Seattle garbage, en route to the Tulalip reservation landfill in Snohomish County, overturned, and garbage washed on eastern Camano Island’s shore. Island County sent a letter of protest to Seattle’s mayor and city council.
The Duryee Company of Everett bought the six-year-old Oak Harbor post office building at Patton’s Center for $91,000.
Rear Admiral Joseph A. Japp was set to take command of Fleet Air at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island on June 18.
John Meyer, 17, designed and built a 12-foot by 18-foot log cabin from scratch on Monkey Hill Road in Oak Harbor. He felled all the fir trees and hauled them out of the woods with his 1937 Dodge pick-up truck. His grandfather, also named John Meyer, was one of the north end’s first settlers, having come from Michigan in 1910 and bought 40 acres on what was then called Tea and Coffee Road (later renamed Lee Road).
The Oak Harbor Schools directors on May 12 authorized acquiring the Toler property, facing 700 Avenue West, for $12,500, in order to put in a walkway for students between the elementary and high schools.
A three-pound can of F-L-U-F-F-O “top-quality yellow shortening” cost 69 cents at the Payless in Freeland and Oak Harbor.
25 years ago (1991 — Whidbey News-Times)
The clamor over a move to close Naval Air Station Whidbey Island continued, with a civilian task force finding “a large number of errors” in Navy documents supporting the closure. Citizen group Whidbey Islanders for a Sound Environment (WISE) voted to support the Navy’s closure recommendation. The May 4 issue included a double-truck yellow-and-black poster boldly urging “Save NAS Whidbey.”
Roger Woehl, superintendent of Oak Harbor Schools, was one of four finalists to the $90,000-per-year position of superintendent of the Bellingham School District. The next issue revealed he hadn’t gotten the job and so would stay on in Oak Harbor.
Some Coupeville residents complained that the “Third Saturday” dances at the Rec Hall were too noisy and sought to shut them down.
The pheasant hatchery on Coupeville’s Parker Road — officially called the Washington State Department of Wildlife Game Farm -— saw the hatching of 1,200 of the 20,000 pheasants it would distribute during the year. Eighty percent of the released bird, on average, were shot by hunters.
Early-morning Island Transit buses going up Anthes Avenue in Langley were angering residents by awakening them.
