30 Years Ago – Friday was a day of much excitement for the family and friends of Rob Richie when he was called up from the Toledo Mud Hens, AAA farm team, to be added to the team roster of the Detroit Tigers Richie had advanced a level each year since being drafted by Detroit, playing first on the A level in Lakeland, Fla., then in Glens Falls, N.Y. at AA and then in Toledo, Ohio on the AAA level.

10 Years Ago:

  • Mineral County Sheriff’s Officers initiated a felony vehicle traffic stop within the 500 block of H Street, in Hawthorne, after Sgt. Billy Ferguson observed a vehicle and driver acting suspiciously and making erratic driving movements on US 95, while entering Hawthorne from the south in a northbound direction. Prior to the traffic stop, officers conducted a registration and warrants check through the NCIC computer system on the vehicle’s license plates, which came back that the vehicle was stolen out of the state of Georgia. The driver was identified as Seth Thomas Griffith, 33 of Norris Town, Pa. Officers learned that Griffith was a fugitive fleeing from justice and was wanted on several warrants of arrest out of the state of Pennsylvania for rape, sexual assault, unlawful restraint of a person, stalking, burglary, indecent exposure and assault when he allegedly followed a 19-year-old female home from a shopping mall in Pennsylvania, broke into her home and allegedly committed the above crimes.
  • James Utterback and Michael James were presented thank you awards from the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP).

20 Years Ago:

  • A report was received by local authorities of a raging fire burning out of control in the mountains south of Hawthorne, in the Boy Scout Canyon area and it wasn’t long before the fire departments of Hawthorne and Hawthorne Army Depot were on scene.
  • President Clinton signed the 1999 military construction bill which included $33 million in projects that Senator Harry Reid designated for military construction projects at Nellis Air Force Base, Reno-Stead Airport and the Hawthorne Army Depot as part of the fiscal year 2000 Military Construction Appropriations Bill.

30 Years Ago:

  • Christopher Holmes, 38-year old Hawthorne resident, was ordered to stand trial in district court on several felony charges resulting from a shooting incident that took place in the Hawthorne business district shortly after midnight July 12.

40 Years Ago:

  • Hawthorne’s Nelda McCoy and Colleen Powell became the first women to swim the width of Walker Lake, from Nolan on the east shore to Tamarack Beach on the west.
  • A 26,459 square-foot warehouse was being offered for sale and removal at Hawthorne Army Ammunition Plant.

50 Years Ago:

  • Work on the construction of the new Mineral County courthouse started with contractor’s heavy earth moving equipment preparing the site. Work of excavating for footings was scheduled to begin that week.
  • Discovery the prior week of a Mineral County Airlines DC-3 passenger plane, missing on a flight from Hawthorne since Feb. 18, and the resultant task of removing the bodies of the 35 victims from a mountain peak west of Lone Pine, Calif., was described in detail in Thursday’s issue of the Inyo Register from Bishop, Calif. Describing the scene and tasks to be performed, John Wintersteen wrote in the paper: “The plane was found crumpled on a hogback ridge below Mt. Carillon west of Lone Pine this weekend, closing an episode that has cost 39 lives and which came dangerously close to claiming more Sunday when an Air Force helicopter crashed at the wreck scene. Workers located the last eight bodies Wednesday morning, and all were expected to be taken off the mountain later the same day. Investigators were to remain at the crash site, at least through Thursday. Vital instruments will be removed from the scene, but the remainder of the wreckage will be left.”

60 Years Ago:

  • Insofar as possible, the Hawthorne community swimming pool project would take precautionary measures to guard against vandalism, it was announced. During the summer, a padlock was shot off one of the doors to the bath-house. A .22 rifle was used. Parents were asked to keep stricter tabs on their youngsters possessing such firearms.
  • July sales of U.S. Savings Bonds in Mineral County amounted to $43,233, county bond chairman, Henry R. Gilbert, announced. “Mineral County residents today own and hold more than $2,125,000 worth of Series E and H Savings Bonds, according to U.S. Treasury estimates,” he continued and pointed out that “The July sales are an important part of a steady building of personal savings reserves throughout the county.”

70 Years Ago:

  • Naval and military installations throughout the nation were drastically reduced in civilian personnel by Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, but through the efforts of Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, the Hawthorne Naval Ammunition Depot civilian personal total was maintained at 1,100 employees.
  • Two minors, aged 16 and 17, were arrested shortly after they broke into Marks Furniture store on F Street in Hawthorne. The teenage boys were caught by Ray Gladding, city policeman and Al Jensen, deputy sheriff after they had broken a plate glass window at the Marks store and taken a pistol and a rifle.

80 Years Ago:

  • Shafts would be sunk immediately at four different locations on the slope below La Panta mine, 16 miles southeast of Hawthorne. Lumber for the collar sets had been arriving for the past ten days. The La Panta, which was again actively being mined, was formerly a producer of unusually rich gold ore from a wide vein, which had been heavily eroded in past years and this eroded material should make a profitable placer mine it was believed, especially as the gold occurred in a soft quartz and iron-stained vein matter from which the gold should be released readily by weathering and attrition.
  • Clifton Paul Grimes wasn’t viewing the new oiling of streets with any great enthusiasm. Clifton had a monopoly on shoe shining here – that is, he was the only shoe shiner in town. The dusty streets made business for him. He feared that when the streets were oiled there wouldn’t be as great a demand for shoe shining.

90 Years Ago:

  • One hundred and fifty strikers had settled their differences with the Six Companies at Boulder Dam, according to reports. Practically all men were back at work and improvements in the working conditions were seen.
  • O. J. Belleville had optioned his gold mine 12 miles east of Mina in Telephone Canyon to a Los Angeles financier named Russell according to reports brought to Hawthorne from Mina. Russell visited the mine and after securing the option left for Los Angeles. It was said that he was to return in ten days with capitalists who had sufficient funds to purchase the mine.