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In this installment of A Look Back in Time, the Wednesday, Aug. 29, 1956, edition of The Chronicle featured a story about two local youths after they were caught and admitted to stealing paint and vandalizing a number of buildings and cars, including painting “obscene words” on the Centralia Elementary School.
Also in the Wednesday, Aug. 29, 1956, edition, amid the ongoing presidential election, it was announced the Hobo Party nominated “Bozo” as its presidential candidate that year. Bozo was joined by running mate “Boxcar Betty” after the Hobo Party held its convention in New York.
And in the Monday, Aug. 29, 1966, edition of The Chronicle, it was reported that members of the Cowlitz Prairie Grange held their third annual Threshing Bee, with vintage tractors and farming equipment on display.
Some Sunday editions were not in the archives, so stories from the previous days’ editions have been featured instead. When The Chronicle was still a daily newspaper, Sunday editions were often reprints of Saturday editions, unless major breaking news needed to be reported.
A Look Back in Time is compiled using microfilm archives at The Chronicle, physical copies stored at the Lewis County Historical Museum — located at 599 NW Front St. in Chehalis — and digital archives on newspapers.com.
Saturday, Aug. 28, 1926
• Chehalis dentist Dr. J.H. Johnson happened to catch someone in the act of burglarizing his office, The Chronicle reported. “Returning to his office about 11 o’clock last night, Dr. J.H. Johnson of Chehalis was in time to surprise an invader, R.J. Allen, who, it is alleged, was in the act of burglarizing the office. Allen was taken into custody and is being held in the county jail awaiting further action in the case. Allen, aged about 35, was camping at Alexander Park with his family. Dental supplies, apparently stolen elsewhere, are said to have been found in his automobile.”
• A “large modern house” with two apartments along with an additional “small house at rear on corner lot” located at 419 S. Pearl St. in Centralia was listed for sale in The Chronicle’s classifieds for $3,750. A two-room apartment with “light, water and wood furnished” at 405 S. Gold St. in Centralia was listed for rent for $17 a month.
Saturday, Aug. 29, 1936
• Lewis County Sheriff’s Office deputies, along with local loggers, were so far unsuccessful in their search and rescue efforts for Max Hopp, a missing teenager who left his home in the upper Lucas Creek area east of Chehalis the prior Monday and never returned, The Chronicle reported. “The youth went into the woods near his home and has not been seen since. Deputy Sheriff Jim Compton, who has been leading the search, was forced to drop out yesterday when he injured his knee, striking it against a snag. Most of the men who had been searching for him returned to their work in the logging camps today, although others are still looking and have not given up hope that he will be found. Hopp is said to be subject to epileptic spells and it is feared some harm came to him while under such a spell.” While the search continued, it appears Hopp, or his remains, were never found, as the last mention of him found in digital archives on newspapers.com was in the Friday, Sept. 18, 1936, edition of The Chehalis Bee-Nugget, which reported investigators still had no clues as to where Hopp went, and Lewis County Attorney James E. Sareault and Washington State Patrol trooper Lou Geer were still helping his parents search. “The father and mother have continued the search daily, and the young man’s dog recently has been disappearing in the daytime and returning at night. The dog came home the evening of the day Hopp was last seen.”
• A 1926 Ford Model T touring car was listed for sale in The Chronicle’s classifieds for $47.50. Used radios from the Price Music Co. at 211 N. Tower Ave. in Centralia were listed for sale for $7.50 each.
Thursday, Aug. 29, 1946
• Washington state Sen. Harry Wall and local state Rep. Arthur S. Cory, both Republicans, refused to sign a Democratic approval of conditions at the State Training School in Chehalis according to their Committee on Juvenile Delinquency minority report after they observed abuse, The Chronicle reported. “After the hearings in Olympia and inspection of the school at Chehalis the following day, the report stated, ‘it is very apparent that brutal beatings of inmates is a common practice and should be stopped. Surely, the approximate 40 strokes with a double-leather strap, reinforced with an additional piece of leather and a saw blade, applied to the naked legs and buttocks of an undersized 14-year-old boy while held by larger boys, by a larger man in front of an entire ‘company’ of other boys, is no case of mere ‘spats.’ Evidence admitted and not disputed, revealed similar beatings common practice, and it was not denied that promises of 50 lashes were made. The ineffectiveness of such harsh and cruel treatment is clearly shown by the continuing and constant stream of runaways. One even occurred the night before our visit.”
• A “partly-modern” six-room home with a barn, hen house, shop and two-car garage on 220 acres of land “about eight miles from Chehalis” was listed for sale in The Chronicle’s classifieds for $8,000. A house on four lots of land in Toledo was listed for sale for $8,000.
Wednesday, Aug. 29, 1956
• A pair of youth from Centralia and Rochester were in custody after being caught and admitting to stealing paint and vandalizing cars, along with school and fairground property, The Chronicle reported. “Centralia police Tuesday nabbed a 13-year-old Centralia boy who admitted spraying yellow paint on vehicles in the city Sunday and implicated a 12-year-old Rochester boy in the vandalism. The youths were turned over to Lewis County Juvenile Officer Floyd Green for administration of the case. The Centralia youth admitted spraying the paint on vehicles from his bicycle. The pair said they stole a can of pressurized paint from the Southwest Washington (SWW) Fair. Victims of the paint-spraying spree were three autos parked in Centralia, a Centralia High School bus, the grandstands at the SWW Fair and a Centralia Elementary School building. Obscene words were written on the face of the Centralia school building.”
• Along with an Associated Press story about U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon feeling “confident” about his and President Dwight Eisenhower’s chances of winning a second term in the upcoming November election, The Chronicle also featured a Newspaper Enterprise Association photo of a pair of third party candidates who had just declared their candidacy that year. “The Republicans and Democrats are not alone in their campaigning. At a convention in New York, the Hobo Party nominated Boxcar Betty, left, for vice president, and Bozo, right, for president. They have not, as yet, announced their platform.” While The Chronicle could not find any information on who Bozo was, or how he and Boxcar Betty did in the 1956 presidential election, Boxcar Betty was a well-known train-hopper throughout the era whose real name was Emma Bertha, according to the University of Iowa’s Hobo Archive. Bertha was even named Hobo Queen five times throughout her life at the National Hobo Convention, which is still held annually in Britt, Iowa. According to the Lower East Side History Project, there was a man nicknamed Bozo who lived in New York during these years, also known as “Bozo, the hobo poet,” though it is unclear if this is the same Bozo who ran for president in 1956. In a story in the Sunday, Dec. 12, 1948, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, it was reported the Bowery News — a short-lived newspaper specifically for homeless migrant workers also called the Hobo News at one point — stated that Bozo was one of two men removed from its social register that year. “Two well-known personalities, the editors noted, had been given the boot — Dan O’Brien, honorary Hobo King, ‘for senile delinquency — he’s become a bottle baby’; and Bozo, the hobo poet, ‘for becoming a pearl diver (dishwasher) in a gandy dancer (railroad worker) camp.’” Boxcar Betty was noted as being a new addition to the Bowery News’s social register after donating land in New Jersey for a “hobo’s rest home,” and was described as a “cigar-smoking, 200-pound former hula-hula dancer, coal miner and snake charmer.”
• An “attractive home” with a good barn on 90 acres of land with creek access “close in” to Centralia was listed for sale in The Chronicle’s classifieds for $8,500. A partly-furnished, two-bedroom “small house” in Chehalis was listed for rent for $30 a month.
Monday, Aug. 29, 1966
• Vintage tractors and farm equipment were on display at the third annual Cowlitz Prairie Grange Threshing Bee, The Chronicle reported. “Old-styled engines, a thresher and a binder took part in a threshing bee Sunday at the William Raupp farm near Toledo. This engine, owned by Gene Frase of Route 2, Onalaska, is a 1908 Russell. It’s fired by wood. Dinner was served at the Cowlitz Grange hall.” First held in 1964, the Cowlitz Prairie Grange Threshing Bee ended in 2019 after the property owners of the location where it used to be held did not renew the lease for the event. However, in 2022, some of the remaining organizers from the Cowlitz Prairie Grange Threshing Bee partnered with Ethel resident Ken Olsen, and now hold the annual Olsen Field Progress Days festival, which continues the Threshing Bee’s traditions.
• A three-bedroom home on a “very large city lot” with a fenced yard, shop and carport located at 214 N. Rock St. in Centralia was listed for sale in The Chronicle’s classifieds for $14,950. A “neat” one-bedroom home with a den in Chehalis was listed for rent for $65 a month.
Saturday, Aug. 28, 1976
• Redmond resident Julie Dawe was featured in a Chronicle Weekender story after she was chosen as the second woman in the Union Pacific Railroad’s Seattle region to undergo engineer training. “When she was a child, Julie Dawe would stand next to the railroad tracks, count the cars of a passing train and wave to the engineer. And now, many years later, children of a different generation stand at the railroad tracks, count the cars of the passing train and wave to engineer Julie Dawe. ‘The first time I sat in the engineer’s seat, I was overwhelmed,’ Mrs. Dawe said recently as she piloted a Union Pacific freight train from Seattle to Portland. The 26-year-old Redmond woman is making history of sorts as the second woman in Union Pacific’s Seattle region to undergo engineer training … ‘I just like riding trains and being around trains,’ Mrs. Dawe said in explaining why she wanted to become an engineer. ‘There is adventure to the job. Something different happens on every trip,’ she added. The soft-spoken, unassuming Mrs. Dawe does not fit the usual stereotype of a railroad engineer. One would assume her niche would be in an office punching a keyboard instead of ramrodding a 100-car train along with male engineers. But after working eight months as a clerk at the Seattle yard, Mrs. Dawe realized her future should include engineer training. She applied for and was accepted for training, which she started last April. ‘She’s not afraid of the trains … she doesn’t seem to be overwhelmed by all this,’ said Dave Freeman, Union Pacific superintendent. ‘She’s a little lacking in mechanical ability, but she’s going to make it,’ he said. Mrs. Dawe, whose husband Darcy is a Safeway employee, completed an intensive three-week class at Cheyenne, Wyoming, where she learned the rules and mechanical aspects of operating a train. Next came a series of actual runs between Seattle and Portland where, under the supervision of an engineer-trainer, she put to practical use the knowledge she gained from textbooks. On a recent run, this reporter (Eric Hoxit) rode in the cab of a Union Pacific freight train from Seattle to Centralia. At the controls was Mrs. Dawe, her long, dark hair blowing in the breeze. She was wearing the engineer’s stock in trade — bib overalls. ‘The training was a lot harder than I expected,’ she reflected. ‘I was required to know about mechanical stuff, such as air brakes and how to determine what the trouble is when an engine dies. Operating rules must be learned — train orders, signaling and radio operation. One test at the school was 63 pages long.’ For Mrs. Dawe, becoming an engineer was not a personal crusade for women’s liberation. It was a natural result of her long, abiding interest in trains. Among the male engineers, ‘there was a certain amount of resentment toward a woman engineer, but it’s died down now,’ Superintendent Freeman said. ‘They might have their own opinions, but they’re keeping them to themselves.’ One reason Mrs. Dawe is accepted by her male counterparts, Freeman said, is that she is assigned to work with younger male engineers who would have a more open attitude and could relate easier to the change.”
• An “older home” with “other buildings” on 13.04 acres of land near Napavine was listed for sale in The Chronicle’s classifieds for $29,500. A “partially furnished” three-bedroom home with a garage and fenced yard in Centralia was listed for rent for $180 a month.
