100 years ago
In September 1924, a beaver colony thwarted the highway department’s attempt to install a culvert at Biddle’s Cut-Off, located on the Vancouver-Camas portion of the North Bank Highway. The beavers used logs, brush, twigs, grass and leaves to stymie the project. The critters and the highway department went back and forth for several weeks, one group putting up a dam and the other taking it down. Finally having enough, the highway department put a wire fence around the culvert to prevent the beavers from building any more dams.
75 years ago
County farmers faced an onslaught of tansy ragwort in September 1949. With many crops still standing on farms throughout Clark County, the toxic weed’s spread happened at the worst possible time. Tansy ragwort was thriving in isolated parts of the county, making eradication efforts difficult, though Assistant Extension Agent Paul Wesseler assured farmers the situation was far from hopeless.
50 years ago
On Sept. 21, 1974, Soviet cosmonauts Anatoli Filipchenko and Nikolai Rukavishnikov visited Pearson Airpark in commemoration of the 1937 Chkalov flight made by three of their fellow citizens. Filipchenko and Rukavishnikov received handshakes from local officials, as well as a toy rocket from a 5-year-old Vancouverite. Danny Grecco, the oldest licensed airplane mechanic in the country, regaled the cosmonauts with details from the 1937 landing of the first trans-polar flight. Grecco was one of the individuals who had helped the Chkalov fliers with their plane after its unexpected landing.
25 years ago
On Sept. 15, 1999, three Russian government officials and a translator visited Vancouver City Hall, Washington State University Vancouver and Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary as part of a 10-day trip to learn more about democratic government and institutions. Roosevelt students presented crusty bread and a bowl of salt to their guests, a traditional “way to say ‘hello’” in Russia. They were also greeted by students who emigrated from Russia and Eastern Europe, some of whom wore traditional white cotton and embroidered clothing. Of the school’s 690 students, 42 percent were immigrants.
