130 Years Ago
July 20, 1894
The organization of the fire department was effected in the council chamber on Saturday night with the election of the following officers: Banks Stewart, chief engineer; H.C. Draver, assistant chief; F.W. Smith, secretary; and treasurer of the department proper, F.W. Smith acting as temporary chairman in calling the meeting to order and John N. Clark as temporary secretary.
125 Years Ago
July 21, 1899
Mrs. W.E. Hall was a passenger for the East Tuesday night, her destination being Coos Rapids, Iowa, where she will visit for a time with Mr. Hall’s relatives.
120 Years Ago
July 15, 1904
At a meeting held Wednesday evening of the members of the Alert fire department, same being a farewell to A. Blackburn, who has served well and faithfully during the past two years or more as chief of the department, and A.F. Brennan elected to the place of chief.
115 Years Ago
July 16, 1909
Chas. S. Owens died at his home shortly before noon today. He suffered a stroke of paralysis some three weeks ago, which affected his left side, and it was feared the he could not recover.
110 Years Ago
July 19, 1914
Contrary to the report and petition circulated at the democratic convention Tuesday afternoon, Miss Della M. Reed will not be a candidate for the office of County Superintendent of Box Butte county this fall.
105 Years Ago
July 18, 1919
In our midst are those gentlemen who are constantly planning and scheming for the social and industrial betterment of Alliance; men who devote many hours of their time to matters pertaining to the betterment of conditions and in which they, when their end has been successfully accomplished, receive as their only renumeration the pride in the thought of an almost impossible project being successfully carried out.
100 Years Ago
July 15, 1924
Box Butte county farmers, businessmen and residents generally are jubilant over the rains Saturday night and Sunday which broke a drouth of several week’s duration and will insure the success of the crops in general. Over two inches of rain fell in Alliance, and the rainfall covered the territory to the north, east and west.
95 Years Ago
July 16, 1929
Alliance will again qualify for a place on the national air map, as it will soon have a new large flying field. The Chamber of Commerce airways committee has been busy for sometime to obtain an airport and they are near the end of their stack.
90 Years Ago
July 17, 1934
A wave of heat which has caused untold suffering throughout the midwest, sapped much of the remaining moisture from drouth areas and set unprecedented heat records at many points, pushed Alliance’s official thermometer to the highest level ever recorded here at noon Sunday.
85 Years Ago
July 18, 1939
What is undoubtedly one of the greatest gains in tax collections in the history of Box Butte county was reported today by Treasurer Russell Melick, when he announced that real and personal tax money taken in during the first six months of 1939 amounted to $184,968.79, a gain of $54,242.44, or 41.55 per cent, over the collections of $130,726.35 in the same period last year.
80 Years Ago
July 18, 1944
George F. Hamilton, 72, C.B. & Z. civil engineer at Alliance from 1908 to 1931 died Friday morning at a hospital in Lincoln, where he has made his home since leaving Alliance.
75 Years Ago
July 15, 1949
Tragedy struck on Highway 19 north of Alliance shortly before noon today as Alfred Cook, about 30, of Laurel, Neb., lost his life in a 2-truck crash which also sent Kenneth C. Clark to the hospital with serious injuries.
70 Years Ago
July 17, 1954
Box Butte County’s wheat harvest rolled past the mid-way point today and County Agent John Reynolds was standing pat on his previous estimate of a 20-bushel-per-acre average for all grain cut.
65 Years Ago
July 17, 1959
The Alliance City Council approved an application for a new manager at Wonder Bar, heard a protest as to an increase in the number of rats in alleys around town, and passed a resolution providing money necessary for running the City during the coming year at an abbreviated session Thursday night.
60 Years Ago
July 18, 1964
The first official function of the 1964 edition of Cattle Capital Rodeo, Inc. gets underway this afternoon with the rodeo queen parade down Box Butte Avenue at 4:30 p.m. Nine entries have been received for the queen contest with at least one more entry expected before parade time this afternoon.
55 Years Ago
July 17, 1969
People who need people, Pete Georges believes, are the luckiest people in the world. He, unlike many persons, decided to put this philosophy into his life…on a large scale. Pete, 23, and his 185-pound St. Bernard, Ted, are on the second leg of an 8,000-mile cross-country odyssey, traveling by car, freight train and canoe and “various other forms of hitch-hiking.”
50 Years Ago
July 17, 1974
Paul Schilder, 31, has been named administrator for the new Box Butte General Hospital. The announcement was made today by Leonard Peterson, chairman of the board of trustees.
45 Years Ago
July 17, 1979
With the weather not cooperating, “migrant” wheat harvesters arriving in Alliance and Hemingford are checking their equipment and cooling their heels, waiting for some sunshine to signal the state of the harvest. While from the road fields in Box Butte County appear ripe and ready, according to growers, a closer inspection reveals many green heads. The cool weather is giving the 115,000 acres of the wheat in the county more time to mature.
40 Years Ago
July 18, 1984
At their regular meeting Tuesday morning, the Box Butte County Commissioners instructed County Clerk Kathryn Hood to advertise for applicants to replace County Superintendent of Schools Joan Kollars who has resigned.
35 Years Ago
July 15, 1989
Forty-six bikers, ranging in age from 14 to 56, rode out of Alliance on Sunday, July 9, to begin the first leg of the 291-mile Heritage Days Bike Ride. The first day took the bikers through the Sandhills east of Alliance to Hyannis. The remainder of the trip included overnight stops in Ogallala, Sidney and Bayard before returning to Alliance Thursday morning.
30 Years Ago
July 15, 1994
Two representatives from Cornhusker Youth Leadership of Norfolk gave a presentation at the Alliance Country Club Thursday. They talked about getting youths involved in the community. Mike Flood,19, and Damon Heyblock, 17, spoke about the way the youth program got started in Norfolk, and what issues are undertaken.
25 Years Ago
July 17, 1999
During Thursday evening’s Alliance City Council meeting, people in the audience praised the fact that the traffic light at Tenth Street and Box Butte Avenue has been turned off, and that four-way stop signs now controlled traffic at that intersection. To a person, the vocal members of the audience expressed their wishes that the situation would stay the way it is. Trouble is, the light hasn’t been turned off—it’s broken.
20 Years Ago
July 17, 2004
An Alliance High School senior was among 36 Nebraska high school seniors selected to serve on Attorney General Jon Bruning’s Youth Advisory Council. Senior Rachel Steele was notified a few weeks ago that she would be serving on the Youth Advisory Council. Steele is the only senior selected from the Panhandle.
15 Years Ago
July 17, 2009
During the July 16 evening meeting of the Alliance City Council, the first item to be discussed was the second reading of Ordinance 2643, an ordinance to amend the Alliance Municipal Code by raising the occupation tax of Alliance’s hotels and motels. This increase, if adopted, will increase the lodger’s total tax to 14 percent.
10 Years Ago
July 17, 2014
There was hardly a seat open at Newberry’s Wednesday evening, as the business was transformed into a game show atmosphere for the 2014 Gong Show.
5 Years Ago
July 17, 2019
After a move outside of the district made her ineligible to serve on the board, Amanda Mockerman tendered her resignation from the Alliance Public Schools Board of Education, kicking off the search for a new member.
*Compiled from The Alliance Times-Herald Archives by staff.