The Way We Were

Jan. 5, 1922

The Civic Improvement Club held its regular monthly meeting at City Hall on Saturday afternoon. The principal activity of the club at the present time is maintenance of the library and reading room which was opened two months ago. The club had bookshelves built. It also pays the salary of the librarian and adds two new books of fiction to the library each month. It is hoped that the library will become self-supporting in time, but at present the club has assumed the responsibility for its maintenance.

Jan. 3, 1947

One of the highlights of the New Year celebration in Wrangell was the annual Elks dance, which was preceded by Tom and Jerries at the lodge hall for Elks and their ladies. A big crowd turned out and the door prize went to Douglas Gross. Al Ritchie headed the dance committee. The hosts at the party at the lodge hall were Exalted Ruler Olaf Hansen, Bill Grant, Bill Hunting and Howard Baltzo. A leather medal went to Bill Grant for making the tops Tom and Jerry batter.

Jan. 7, 1972

Prospects were termed good this week that Wrangell will have a million-gallon-a-day sewage treatment plant in operation by the summer of 1974. Currently, the city pumps all of its sewage raw into Zimovia Strait, and the federal government has ruled that the discharge must stop. The 10-acre site for the sewage treatment plant is on muskeg land northeast of town behind Mt. Dewey and adjacent to the new Wrangell East Road to the airport. The plant is designed to handle Wrangell’s sewage volume for 20 years and will have a capacity to handle one million gallons a day.

Jan. 9, 1997

Alaska’s public school enrollment has gone beyond the 125,000 mark for the first time ever, Commissioner of Education Shirley Holloway announced. Wrangell School District enrollment stands at 526, down from about 550 last year. The growing student enrollment will continue to place pressure on the state’s resources and its commitment to Alaska children’s education, Holloway said. The federal government has estimated Alaska’s public school enrollment will increase by an additional 16,000 students in the next 10 years.