The Way We Were In the Sentinel 100, 75, 50 and 25 years ago.

October 17, 1918

Repeated communications from Red Cross headquarters emphasize the urgent need for the greatest activity in the campaign for the collection of fruit pits and nutshells. Do not allow your interest and activity in this campaign to lag. This campaign will not end with the close of the fresh fruit season. It is on for the duration of the war. To make carbon to protect our men from German Poison Gas, the government needs peach stones, apricot pits, prune pits, plum pits, olive pits, date seeds, cherry pits, brazil-nut shells, walnut shells, hickory-nut shells, and butter-nut shells. Collect all you can of all or any of these and turn them in to the nearest Red Cross Chapter, which will ship them to the proper authorities.

October 15, 1943

Chamber of Commerce at its regular luncheon meeting yesterday named a committee of H.B. Thornquist, W. L. Eastaugh and the Rev. Ben Judd to confer with the Town Council relative to lifting the dim-out regulation here. It was brought out that other towns are lighted up while Wrangell continues to be blacked out.

October 17, 1968

Wrangell’s $1.9 million airport will be dedicated at 3 p.m. Friday. State and federal officials will be on hand for the ceremony, which will mark official opening of the 5,000-foot facility. Although the airport will be in use, construction work on the project will continue through this month. Alaska Airlines is scheduled to begin regular flights to the facility Friday. On hand for the dedication program will be a delegation of Federal Aviation Administration men from Anchorage headed by Lyle Brown, FAA regional administrator.

October 14, 1993

Employees of the U.S. Census Bureau will visit a sample of Wrangell area residents the week of Oct. 17-23 to collect labor force information for the Current Population Survey, according to Leo C. Schilling, director of the bureau’s Seattle regional office. The local data will contribute to October’s national employment and unemployment picture to be released Nov. 5 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.