The Way We Were

March 26, 1925

The Civic Club held an interesting special meeting last Saturday. An informal discussion on proposed legislative measures of interest to the women of the territory was followed by a survey of possible candidates for the coming city election. Considerable interest is manifested by the thinking women of the community in the result of the election, owing to the fact that the school question is involved and because of the fact that women have been urged to take a more active part in civic affairs. While several suggestions were made in regard to candidates for the city council and school board, no definite endorsement was given by the club as an organization.

March 24, 1950

The Olive Cove (Suake Creek) downstream weir was installed this week by the local Fish and Wildlife office. Wilhelm Jordan, local troller, will be in charge of the station. The purpose of the weir is to count pink salmon fry moving down and out of the stream. The migration is always in the evening, thus accounting for the fact that fry are never observed in the stream during daytime. Knowing the number of adult pink salmon which pass through the upstream weir and the number of fry passing downstream, a determination can be made on the success of hatching.

March 26, 1975

A 14-year-old Wrangell boy with a talent for electronics and a penchant for spying has been apprehended with five cassette tapes of 70 telephone conversations police said he recorded from the business phone at the high school. Police said the youth, who worked at maintaining the school’s audio-visual equipment, set up his extracurricular shop in a small room under the school’s roof adjacent to the gym. The student tapped into the main telephone line and took in a total of about five hours of conversations to and from the school office lines. Officers said the boy was questioned and released to the custody of his parents. Criminal charges may be made, said Chief William Klein.

March 23, 2000

A Wrangell institution changes hands this month as Bryant Benjamin and his wife Joan sell the grocery business thatwas founded by Bryant’s grandfather Charles in 1912. Benjamin’s IGA is now officially Bob’s IGA and will be under local ownership and management of Bob and Bobie Robbins. Bob has managed Benjamin’s for nearly 11 years and, like Bryant, grew up in the business, starting as a clerk in Safeway as a teen. He says he has wanted to own his own grocery store for 20 years, a dream now fulfilled. The Robbins plan no immediate changes. “Why fix it if it isn’t broken?” says Bob.