View from the Past

100 Years Ago

Churchill County’s Christmas present-the sugar factory will run during the 1916 campaign. The best piece of news that has reached Fallon in a long time is the assurance that George Wingfield, with the assistance of practical sugar people from California, will soon assume control of the Fallon sugar factory and properly finance the 1916 campaign. Our business people are in high spirits over the news. It spells prosperity. Churchill County Eagle, Saturday, December 18, 1915

R.W. Wiley of Portland Oregon has been in Fallon, looking into the Fallon Electric Railroad proposition. Salt alone should pay the fixed charge of the railroad. Now that the assurance is given that the sugar factory will run this coming year, Mr. Wiley will take up financial matters with his New York associates. In fact, abstracts will be completed about the first of the year. The electric railroad will connect with the Southern Pacific about a quarter of a mile east of the “Y.”

Churchill County Eagle, Saturday, December 18, 1915

75 Years Ago

Unusually attractive this year will be the large Christmas tree which will center Maine street. This will be the eleventh consecutive year that the Knights of Pythias have sponsored this worthwhile holiday project ... In what has been described as a somewhat “rough house” contest, the Fallon Merchants and the Hawthorne Marines elbowed, gouged, slugged and fought each other to a 28 to 28 tie Saturday night on the high school court with both clubs exhibiting a trifle ragged but promising brand of ball. The Fallon Standard, Wednesday, December 18, 1940

50 Years Ago

The Lions Club is planning a special Christmas party for fathers and their children. There will be Santa Claus and cartoons for the kids…The public is invited to a Christmas concert to be held in the high school gym. Mr. Hoffman will direct the choirs and Mr. Lutz will direct the band performing many Christmas carols.

Fallon Eagle-Standard, Tuesday, December 14, 1965

Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman, visiting a bull farm outside Madrid, noticed ferocious, horned heifers being selected to breed fighting bulls. He was watching matadors wave their red capes at the heifers when his host invited him to get into the ring. Taking a cape from a matador, he waited for the first heifer. She charged him like a thunderous freight train. And like a freight train she was too heavy to turn aside. The Secretary of Agriculture waited until the last split second and adroitly stepped aside as if averting the oratory of Sen. Ellender of Louisiana. The animal tore his cape. Perhaps certain senators would have been pleased if he hadn’t stepped aside at exactly the right time. But anyway Orville was too quick for the prospective mothers of the Spanish fighting bulls. Merry-Go-Round, Drew Pearson,

Fallon Eagle-Standard, Tuesday, December 14, 1965

A View From The Past…stories from the Churchill County Museum & Archives, researched and compiled by Margo Weldy, Churchill County Museum Assistant and Dwen Davis, Churchill County Museum Intern.