100 years agoWork of installing a telephone system for the use of the reclamation service on the McKay dam job is under way, and within a short time the service will have its own line. Under arrangements made with the telephone company operating in the Pilot Rock district, a lease has been secured to carry the lines.

A good quality of drinking water was struck yesterday in the well drilling operations. The site of the well is down toward the creek. The water will be pumped to a reservoir on top of the sill and will be distributed through the water system by gravity for the use of the camp.

Power is expected to be available within a short time for drilling operations. The poles ordered by the Pacific Power & Light Co. are on the way here now, and the power line will be erected as quickly as possible. Drilling in rock for the foundation of the cutoff wall will start as soon as power is available.

50 years agoA judge found Joseph P. Kennedy III guilty today of driving to endanger, fined him $100 and urged him to use his “illustrious name” for better purposes.

Afterwards, the young man’s uncle, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said he thought his nephew had received a fair trial and added, “Joe will have to live with the verdict.”

Seven persons were hurt Aug. 13 when an open car driven by the son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., flipped over as it entered a highway from a side road.

Judge C. George Anastos of Nantucket District Court urged Kennedy to “use your illustrious name to do a lot of good as I know you are able rather than having to come into court like this.”

Kennedy had pleaded innocent to the charge.

25 years agoFire that charred some 50,000 acres over the weekend in the Coombs Canyon and Reith-Barnhart areas won’t hurt the fields in the long run and may even help, according to an agronomist with the Oregon State University Extension Service.

Even though erodible soil may have lost its grass stabilizers in the weekend fires, the soil itself won’t just up and blow away, said Mary Corp of the Umatilla County Extension Service. But the fires will bring nutrients back into the soil.

Fields in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) may have lost this year’s space filler of grassed and broad-leaf plants, but they have received a natural cleansing in the fires, she added.

“We’ve discussed it a little bit and realized that the fire was good for these fields,” Corp said. “It allows the release of nutrients in the organic matter. Things like nitrogen and phosphorus have a natural way of coming out.”