130 Years Ago
May 31, 1895
Louis Dunn has a new bicycle.
125 Years Ago
June 1, 1900
It is quite probable that the well machine which was used to sink the 800-foot well at Whitman, and is now at work at Hyannis, will be brought here to dig the well for the city that will have to be provided soon. After going the depth mentioned at Whitman an inexhaustible flow of water was found that rises to within sixteen feet of the surface, making pumping easy.
120 Years Ago
June 2, 1905
Many sidewalks are being built about our enterprising city just now.
115 Years Ago
June 3, 1910
Another unfortunate railroad accident occurred in the yards Wednesday morning, in which switchmen Ed Owens and WW. N. Talbitzer nearly lost their lives, and switchmen Johns was slightly injured. Spreading rails is supposed to be the cause of their engine leaving the track. The three men were standing on the foot board when the crash came.
110 Years Ago
June 1, 1915
Leslie Garrison, a rancher from Montana, was picked up by Policeman Lester Sunday evening and lodged in the city jail to answer to the charge of carrying concealed weapons. Officer Lester in making the rounds of the railroad yards run across Garrison with a bunch of hoboes and upon searching found the gun and took him to the police station.
105 Years Ago
June 1, 1920
Chief of Police Taylor is walking with a slight limp as the result of a too sudden departure of a moving train last Sunday, while in pursuit of Walter A. Jones, who was arrested in the railroad yards and taken to the police station in connection with the alleged theft of some money from three boys with whom he stayed in a local rooming house Saturday night.
100 Years Ago
May 29, 1925
While making light repairs on a freight car in the Burlington yards at 10:15 last night, A. J. Grant, night car foreman, had his right leg and left foot badly crushed when a string of 14 cars of coal were backed into the track and against the car on which he was working. The wheels did not pass over Mr. Grant, but his right leg was crushed between the ankle and the knee. Dr. J. P. Weyrens, attending physician, reports four severe fractures and some of them compound.
95 Years Ago
June 3, 1930
Held up and robbed of his automobile and all his cash Sunday evening about 7:30 o’clock, by two men to whom he had given a ride, J. S. Slaggett of Broken Bow, an electric refrigerator salesman, was forced to make his way to Alliance from the scene of the holdup about five miles east of the city on the Potash highway.
90 Years Ago
May 31, 1935
The first batch of checks which will refund about $10,000 to Alliance employees of the Burlington from the pension fund to which they have been contributing arrived here this morning and are awaiting their owners. The first checks are all for employees of the Burlington Refrigerator Express,, many of them who were employed temporarily during last winter’s ice harvest and who are no longer with the company.
85 Years Ago
May 31, 1940
Bobby Whitlock of Alliance and Donald Haas of Hemingford will attend 4-H club week at Lincoln June 3 to 8 as guests of the Omaha Union Stock Yards company. These boys were awarded prize trips because of their outstanding club work in 1939. Mrs. H. J. Worley of Alliance, who has been leading a 4-H sheep club for the past three years, will attend club week through the courtesy of the Burlington railroad.
80 Years Ago
June 1, 1945
A full two-day program crammed with action, parades, shows, bucking horses, Brahma steers, bulldogging, trick riders and ropers, bands, cowboys and cowgirls galore and everything that goes to make the annual Alliance rodeo one of the best in the West was announced today by Howard Graham, president of the Alliance Rodeo Association.
75 Years Ago
June 2, 1950
With 162 applications on file, many of them from high school graduates and other students, the Alliance office of the Nebraska state employment service, reported the labor supply here is “slightly reduced” at present. On June 1 there were 16 less applicants than on May 1. During April most of the applicants were seeking farm or ranch work; this field has been reduced now, and more are seeking clerical and sales work.
70 Years Ago
June 2, 1955
The scheduled Monday hearing of an Alliance Creamery restraining order against the City of Alliance has been postponed, according to Albert Reddish, attorney for the creamery. Alliance Creamery seeks a permanent injunction to bar the city from enforcing the section of its milk ordinance which prohibits import of milk from outside Alliance.
65 Years Ago
June 1, 1960
With the charge of “Murder while attempting to commit arson” dismissed against Levi White Bull, his trial resumed today in District Court with the defendant charged only with first degree murder. In a motion for a directed verdict late Tuesday afternoon, Defense Attorney Wade H. Ellis asked that the second charge alleging arson be dismissed on grounds of insufficient evidence.
60 Years Ago
May 31, 1965
At least four counterfeit $20 bills circulated in Alliance have been detected, Alliance National Bank President Edward M. Knight said today, with the last one showing up during the weekend. Knight described the counterfeits as being difficult to detect. Actual detection took place at the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City, where two $20 bills received from the Alliance National were detected by sensitive equipment.
55 Years Ago
June 4, 1970
The Alliance Employment Service announced this morning that 213 persons persons were actively seeking work in Northwest Nebraska at the end of May. This was a decrease of 68 from, 1969. Of those seeking employment, manager Frank Mounts reported 60 were new registrants. This was 102 fewer new applications than were filled in May, 1969, and nine less than in April, 1970. Eighty-seven of these are female.
50 Years Ago
May 29, 1975
Two persons have received rewards of $500 and $100 respectively from a fund provided by a group of Alliance citizens for information leading to arrest and conviction in burglary and vandalism cases, according to a joint announcement Thursday from Sheriff Don Underwood and Police Chief John Means. Names of the recipients were not released as in the provisions of the original reward announcement several weeks ago.
45 Years Ago
June 3, 1980
An Alliance couple, Harlow and Leona Hiner, have returned from a memorable trip to the Northwest, and that is putting it mildly. The trip, by way of their 1969 Chevrolet, became perilous at about 2 p.m. Sunday, May 18 as they were driving on Interstate 90 en route to Bremerton, Wash. where they planned to visit Leona’s aunt. All of a sudden a black cloud of ashes enveloped them, the fallout from Mount St. Helens which had erupted about 100 miles away.
40 Years Ago
May 30, 1985
For the past week, the Alliance Police Department has had two of its sergeants carry “stun guns” while on duty which interim police chief Mike Guthrie hopes will be a standard law enforcement tool in the future. The city is currently running a pilot program involving the use of stun guns in law enforcement and as of date has not used the hand-held gun which can deliver up to 50,000 volts.
35 Years Ago
June 2, 1990
Attitudes can be contagious. In a pilot program introduced in the Alliance public schools this year new attitudes rippled through the hierarchy. They stretched from a “Let’s try it” at decision-making levels to Alliance’s first grade classroom where students began to say, “I can do this!”
30 Years Ago
May 31, 1995
The Nebraska Civil Air Patrol searched today for a missing airplane with four people aboard that flew out of this western Nebraska city two days ago. George Geffre of Colorado Springs, Colo., was piloting the single-engine Piper Cherokee, said Air Patrol Lt. Col. Jim Nitz. Three of his relatives were passengers.
25 Years Ago
June 3, 2000
Drenched boys, riding muddy mountain bikes, reach the first summit – more than 100 miles from their destination. Fifteen Boy Scouts from Alliance Troops 344 and 216 and a cub-scout spent their Memorial Day weekend cycling the George S. Mickelson Trail. Beginning at Deadwood, S.D., the boys spanned the Black Hills as they trekked 114 miles along a former Burlington Northern route.
20 Years Ago
June 4, 2005
The Newberry building at the corner of Box Butte Avenue and Fourth Street has been sold to Kelly Jones of Battle Ground, Wash. “We are still working on some of the paperwork at this point,” Jones said, “and there are two potential renters so far.” Jones visit to Alliance this week was his second. “I really like this town, it is vibrant.”
15 Years Ago
June 4, 2010
City Council Begins Approval Of A Downtown Bus Stop: The Alliance City Council conducted their regular, bimonthly meeting last night at 7p.m. at the Alliance Public School’s Administration Building. Judy Price, director of Box Butte County Public Transit, was present to represent and answer any questions concerning Ord. 2662, a municipal code amendment which will create a City designated parking area in the downtown area for public transit.
10 Years Ago
June 2, 2015
“Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War,” a national traveling exhibition which focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s struggle to meet the constitutional challenges of the Civil War, has opened at the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center located at 908 Yellowstone in Alliance. Lincoln was elected the 16th President of the United Stated in 1860, at a time when the nation was falling apart. By the time he took the oath of office, seven states had already seceded from the Union.
5 Years Ago
June 3, 2020
As the community begins the reopening process, the number of COVID-19 cases in the Panhandle has risen to 41 as of press time. Box Butte and Garden Counties have seen two cases each. In Box Butte County, only one case is active.
*Compiled from The Alliance Times-Herald Archives by Christine Melcher