This Week in Odessa History

On Saturday, September 13, 1902, Odessa voters overwhelmingly approved a proposition for the incorporation of their town.

The Record notes the 100th anniversary of this even elsewhere in this issue, but reprints below an editorial which appeared in the September 19, 1902, on what incorporation meant to the community.

The editorial is prophetic about Odessa’s future, much of which turned out to be true:

Last Saturday the citizens of this community wrote a new page in the history of the town when, by an almost unanimous vote, it was decided to incorporate.

This new phase of the town’s history, if wisely used, will never be regretted. Indeed, it has been with a view to greater usefulness as citizens having common interests that we have devoted incorporation.

It is also in line with American ideas of progress. In the history not only of the Pacific slope but the country as a whole, wherever Americans have settled in sufficient numbers to constitute even a village, they have soon found it convenient and ever necessary, especially when public enterprises were to be inaugurated, to incorporate the town.

At this point, Odessa has arrived. Probably within the next two years she will have a thousand people. That a number of people requires convenience of civilized life, such as a water supply for domestic use and fire protection, together with other requirements of modern life.

It is out of the question to have those wants met in any other way than by corporate action. Hence, the demand among all classes of our citizens for incorporating. What to do and what not to do will engage the serious attention of the new Town Council.

All recognize certain pressing problems, but the time and the means to work out the problems must be taken into consideration. Already requests are pouring in on the members of the Town Council to do this and that thing, to make this and that improvement, “now that the town is incorporated.”

Few seem to realize that it takes money to accomplish these things, and at present and for some months to come very little money will find its way into the town treasury. Under these conditions, the Council will have to “go slow” and can do little more than pass some good ordinances looking to the moral betterment of the community and the improvement of conditions in general.

100 Years Ago

From The Odessa Record

September 6, 1912

The matter of establishing a winter school for farmers in Odessa during the coming winter was taken up and discussed at the regular monthly meeting of the Odessa Commercial club. A motion was passed instructing Secretary Rieke to correspond with the State College authorities at Pullman and ask them to select Odessa as one of the ten places at which farmers’ schools will be held by instructors from the state College during the coming year. Upon receipt of a favorable reply, full details will be published in a later issue.

75 Years Ago

From The Odessa Record

September 2,1937

Farmers are turning from their combined harvesters to the rotary rod weeder this week, as the weeds brought on by the pre-harvest rains are gaining headway on the summer fallow.

Crews of boys from town finished their school vacation by hiring out to hoe weeds in fields where weed crops were scattered.

Warehouses in rural sections, open during the harvest rush, are closing.

Thursday, September 9, has been set as the opening date of the new $30,000 Ritz theater in Ritzville, Roy C. Irvine announced this week. Construction is completed and everything is in readiness for the opening, he stated.

25 Years Ago

From The Odessa Record

September 10, 1987

Lincoln County unemployment continued its four-month decline, following statewide downward figures for July which have just been released.

“Total unemployment in Washington state fell from 165,700 and 7.3 percent in June to 159,200 and 7.1 percent in July,” Employment security commissioner Isiah Turner said late last week.

In Lincoln County, joblessness dropped from 5.3 percent to 5.1 percent during the same period, as unemployed workers went from 260 to 240.

10 Years Ago

From The Odessa Record

September 5, 2002

Last Wednesday was the first day of school. There were fresh new faces full of wonder and awe as they entered that big old classroom with a new teacher and all the other children.

Teachers for the 2002-03 school year are Kim Todd, Linda Ryan, Bev Scherr, Ken Scherr, Nancy Floether, Ellen Holman, Dick Green, Bruce Todd, Marianne Iksic, Larry Weber, Leigh Murchie, Mike Sheppard, Duane Pitts, Sam Read, Travis Schuh, Jackie Allington, Jeanie Read, Craig Holman, Bob Berrigan, Larry Moffit and Terry King.