View from the Past

100 Years Ago

War Is Declared by Congress of U.S. — The War Resolution passed by Congress at the urgent request of President Wilson. The senate passed the resolution Wednesday by a vote of 82 to 6, and the following day the House passed it by a vote of 373 to 50. Thus the American people come to the realization that war has been formally declared — a condition that every citizen would gladly have seen averted. Congress is asking to provide a total of $3,550,517,000 to finance war for one year.

Churchill County Eagle, April 7, 1917

State Police are to Guard Mine at Ely — Governor Boyle has ordered the State police to the Nevada Consolidated Copper company’s properties at Ely and fifteen men were recruited at Reno. Under Sergeants Clark and George ten men went from Carson. They are sent in case rioting should be started if Congress declares war, as there are a great many Austrians at the mines, says an exchange.

Churchill County Eagle, April 7, 1917

75 Years Ago

Nevada Farmers Urged to Plant Potatoes — Nevada farmers cooperating in the national agriculture consecration program were urged this week to plant their full acreage allotments of potatoes in 1942. To encourage full planting, said E. A. Settelmeyer, chairman of the Nevada Agriculture Adjustment Administration State Committee of Farmers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided to support potato prices. Any Nevada farmers who cannot for any reason plant up to their full acreage allotments were asked to release the unused part of their allotments to their county Agricultural Conservation Associations so that they may be shifted to other farmers.

Fallon Standard, April 1942.

Workers Favor Longer Work Week — Farmers, whose hours of toil are greater than in any other vocation, make up the group which votes in the Gallup poll for the longest workweek. They would pay no overtime wages until after sixty hours has been put up in on the job. Labor union leaders are shedding salty tears over the popular clamor to extend the straight-pay work week beyond forty hours as an elleged(sic) effort to “enslave” the producers, but the farmers who make up that class of workers who put in the greatest number of hours are willing to stay on the job, with a ceiling over their pay, to aid the American war effort. Only 27 percent of the nation’s voters in the Gallup poll would hold to the forty-hour week, and these voters include industrial workers themselves.

Fallon Standard, April, 1942.

50 Years Ago

Food Services Class In High School — A new and specialized class in Home Economics – Food Services Training- is being offered for the first time at Churchill County High School during this spring semester. Students are given instruction in waitress training, salad girl duties, catering service and bakery skills. Practical observation and on–the-job participation is provided through the cooperation of local food service establishment. Such co-operators in this pilot project are the Downtowner, Leno’s, Spudnut Shop, Safeway Bakery, the North Side School hot lunch programmers and the Stockman’s Coffee Shop.

The Fallon Citizen, April 6, 1967

A view from the past… Stories from the Churchill County Museum and Archives, researched and compiled by Brianna Schwab, Churchill County Museum Assistant.