View from the Past

100 Years Ago

One night last week Ned Schoeraff and James Garrett had a thrilling encounter with a rabid coyote at the former’s cabin a couple miles beyond Desert Well, east of Stillwater. They were sleeping in the upper story of the cabin. Hearing an unusual sound in the yard, they looked out and saw a large coyote gnawing frantically at the well rope. The men yelled to frighten the animal away, but instead, the coyote made for the cabin. Springing upon a bench, he endeavored to leap in at the window, and came within arm’s reach of gaining entrance. The guns were all in the lower part of the building, and as the upper entrance is outside, the best they could do was to pick up everything loose and hurl at the coyote. Finally the coyote went to the barn and endeavored to gnaw his way in where the horses were housed. Since this experience, Mr. Schoeraff and his men go armed to and from the mines. The object in publishing this incident is to warn visitors to the desert or mountain regions.

Churchill County Eagle, Saturday, April 29, 1916

The word tungsten is Swedish and means heavy stone, a very apt title for a metal whose identity remained a mystery until the later part of the eighteenth century, says the Mining American. Tungsten is a word of almost magic sound; it means as much to the miner today as did glittering gold to the 49ers. A few years ago it was extracted by the gold miners of Boulder county, Colorado, and avoided whenever possible because it lowered the value of their concentrates. Its history resembles that of two other metals: in the great Comstock Lode of Nevada, where early miners threw away the black sulphide of silver worth several thousand dollars per ton; and at Leadville where lead carbonate filled up the riffles in the sluice boxes interfering with saving the gold. Silver made millions for the miners, lead carbonates with their contents did the same for Leadville, and tungsten bids fair to do likewise for its producers. Churchill County Eagle, Saturday, April 29, 1916

75 Years Ago

A giant cottonwood tree in Churchill county with a trunk circumference of 23 feet may be the national champion of this species, according to a letter from Lillian Cromelin, associate editor of American Forests in Washington, D.C. The Fallon Standard, Wednesday, April 23, 1941

50 Years Ago

Mrs. Lawrence Riggins of Fallon has been named “Outstanding Cowbelle of the Year” by Churchill County Cowbelles, in appreciation of her contributions to the livestock industry…a brass railroad lantern and a Holtzermann log cabin bottle will be prizes in a raffle sponsored by Friends of the Library and the Fallon Bottle Club Antique and Bottle Show…Little League tryouts are at the Little League Field at 5p.m. Fallon Eagle-Standard, Tuesday, April 19, 1966

From the Past….Stories from the Churchill County Museum Archives, researched and compiled by Margo Weldy, Churchill County Museum assistant.