The Way We Were

Feb. 7, 1924

Wrangell’s Town Team triumphed over their rivals, the American Legion, in a fast and rough game at the rink on Tuesday night, 25-12. The basketball game was played as a benefit for the high school team which was leaving the next day for Seattle. Nearly a hundred dollars was garnered from the game. Speed once more won out over brawn when the two teams met. The floor work of Scribner, the 230-pound fairy, Totts Lewis and Mickey Prescott was too much for the big men on the Legion team. The first half of the game was close and exciting, but in the second half the strain began to tell on the Legion and baskets rained on them.

Feb. 4, 1949

Contrary to an article appearing in last week’s Sentinel, the A. Wells Sawmill did not change owners, but was leased by Mr. and Mrs. Francis Bernardo for a six-months period, with an option to buy. John Hurn will operate the mill as manager, with about four men employed there. New equipment has been installed, including a planer and edger. Hurn hopes to be able to cut 6,000 to 10,000 board feet of lumber a day. Most of the lumber will be cut for local use, with back orders being taken care of first. Anyone having his own logs to cut may have them made into lumber at the mill. For full information or lumber orders, call Francis Bernardo at The Club or see John Hurn at the mill.

Feb. 6, 1974

Gasoline prices were at a record high in Wrangell this week after the most recent of a series of increases since the nationwide fuel crunch began to make itself felt here last fall. At both the Union 76 and Standard Oil retail outlets in town, gasoline was selling for 61 cents a gallon for regular and 64 ½ cents for high-test gasoline. The prices followed a series of jumps that began last October when Wrangell motorists were buying their fuel at 49 and 51 ½ cents respectively for regular and high-test.

Feb 4, 1999

Wrangell residents took a medical high-tech step forward this past week when the Wrangell Medical Center received the gift of a bedside arrhythmia monitoring system. The new system will allow nurses to continually monitor a patient’s heart from the nurses’ station. Marquette Electronics, the primary developer of electronic monitoring equipment in the world, has made a first-time donation of the system, valued at around $30,000, to the medical center as a humanitarian gesture.