130 Years Ago
November 2, 1894
Hemingford is getting metropolitan again. Last Tuesday night a bold, bad burglar got in his work on R. McLeod’s safe, twisting off the knob, inserting giant powder in the hole and blowing the door off. He secured something like $150 and the denizens of that berg were none the wiser until next morning. He was undoubtedly an expert, and as far as we have heard no clue to his identity has been found.
125 Years Ago
November 3, 1899
For the purpose of whipping the voters of the Second commissioner district into line the editor of the Hemingford Herald is working the sympathy rackets. In other words, he tells the people of Hemingford and the north part of the county that if Mr. Loer is defeated for commissioner the Herald will not get the county printing and cannot afford to stay at Hemingford and that that part of the county will be left without a paper. The inference is then, that Mr. Loer has promised Tommy the printing. The law says plainly that the printing shall be let to the lowest bidder, and if so, how can Mr. Loer, if honest, promise the work to anybody. There is nothing in the printing from a financial standpoint, because the law fixes the rate for publishing so low, and the job printing is taken in competition with eastern houses.
120 Years Ago
October 28, 1904
Hon. W. R. Akers, receiver of the land office, and well known to all as an able, eloquent and entertaining speaker, will address the people of Hemingford and vicinity on Saturday, November 5th, according to arrangements now made with Chairman Corbin, of the County Central committee.
115 Years Ago
October 29, 1909
The prairie fires southwest of Alliance last Saturday and Sunday burned over a large quantity of range and made much loss to the settlers in that way, but reports of loss of hay on the range of Joe Vaughan seem to have been in error. The fires were started by railroad locomotives, and with the high wind prevailing, were very serious.
110 Years Ago
October 30, 1914
A large number of interested residents of Box Butte county and Alliance attended the opening session of the Farmers’ Institute held in the new Newberry building Thursday afternoon. In view of the fact that this was the first meeting of the organization in four years the officers and others interested in the reorganized institute were more than pleased with the interest manifested.
105 Years Ago
October 31, 1919
Alliance has been designated as the chief point of examination for all disabled soldiers from the western section of the state. Dr. John McCoy has been designated as examining physician with authority to recommend whatever treatment is necessary without cost to the ex-soldier.
100 Years Ago
October 31, 1924
Charles W. Bryan, governor of Nebraska and democratic nominee for vice president of the United States, addressed an audience numbering nearly a thousand at the roof garden Wednesday night, urging the support of John W. Davis and himself in order that the control of national affairs might be taken out of the hands of the moneyed interests and returned to the people through representatives who are more interested in men than in dollars.
95 Years Ago
October 29, 1929
Two former city policemen here, Elliott Minnick and Harold Jeffryes, who are alleged to have joined the bootlegging fraternity after leaving the police service, were set back several notches by County Judge Ira E. Tash yesterday. The judge sternly cracked down on the pair to the extent of $100 fine and 90-day jail sentence for each.
90 Years Ago
October 30, 1934
Mike Agnew and Harold Pendermon, alumni of the state reformatory at Lincoln, who returned to Alliance six weeks ago from a post-graduate course, are held in the county jail on charges of stealing three shot guns from a car parked beside the Drake hotel while the owner, W. H. Bond of Lincoln, and a party of friends were absent from the car less than 10 minutes.
85 Years Ago
October 31, 1939
Building in Alliance thus far this year has forged far ahead of the same period last year, and is even well ahead of the total for all of 1938, according to the building permit records in the office of the city manager. Building permits issued in October alone totaled $38,832 this year as compared with $8,379 in the same month in 1938.
80 Years Ago
October 31, 1944
Box Butte was one of the 23 Nebraska counties listed the first of this week as having gone over the top in the recent war fund drive. With 92 of the 93 counties reporting, Nebraska up to Saturday had reached 80 percent of its goal. Approximately 150 Alliance citizens participated in the campaign in the city.
75 Years Ago
October 28, 1949
The Board of Education voted Wednesday night to enlarge the gymnasium-auditorium of the proposed Alliance junior high school building and to submit all plans for the structure to the educational survey service of the University of Nebraska before letting contracts. Voters in the district will ballot Nov. 8 on the proposition of whether the district should issue bonds in the amount of $500,000 to pay for the project.
70 Years Ago
October 30, 1954
Box Butte County voters, with 12 county offices to vote on, find only four offices contested. And principal interest among the four swirls around the sheriff race with incumbent Sheriff Fred Shelmadine working for a write-in vote to gain reelection after losing to Matt Berg in the Republican primary. Ray Glass of Hemingford, unopposed in the primary, is the Democratic sheriff candidate and possibly stands to gain from the apparent Republican split.
65 Years Ago
October 30, 1959
Panhandle roads were extremely icy today following an early winter storm which dumped snow over the entire area. Here in Alliance streets were slick and northwest Nebraska highways were described as “hazardous.”
60 Years Ago
October 30, 1964
A second reading of Ordinance 1098 was conducted before the Alliance City Council Thursday evening. The ordinance would force the construction of 5,000 lineal feet of sidewalks in residential areas of Alliance.
55 Years Ago
October 30, 1969
Unless Frontier Airlines can obtain a substantial increase in Federal subsidies, eventually it will be forced to phase out such feeder lines as the one now serving Scottsbluff, Alliance and Chadron on a Denver-Rapid City twice per day route.
50 Years Ago
October 30, 1974
Gone are the sandbox and the nap-rug from their former roles in kindergarten, replaced by a full array of learning aids and equipment to lay a solid education foundation for each child’s next 12 years in school. This information came from the Alliance City Schools three kindergarten teachers in a report to the Board of Education here Tuesday evening.
45 Years Ago
October 30, 1979
All available City personnel and equipment have been activated in an attempt to clean up the aftermath of the first winter snow. Employees from street, water, engineering and administration departments will be working until the problems are solved, according to a press release from the Alliance City Manager’s office.
40 Years Ago
October 30, 1984
The Alliance City Council in an abbreviated special meeting Tuesday morning awarded R. A. Mullendore Consultants of Lincoln and Black and Veach of Kansas City separate contracts to review the city’s electrical distribution system and electric generating facility.
35 Years Ago
October 30, 1989
What do two Texas sculptors talk about during a show at Elaine’s Art Studio in Alliance? Anything, everything and sculpting. Elaine Johnson, owner of the studio, featured Bill Bond and Garland Weeks, formerly of Texas, and now of Loveland, Colo., Friday and Saturday. The show was coordinated by Franz Brown, free lance writer-photographer, who has published stories and photos in Southwest Art. He is the son of Reynold Brown, former artist for a movie studio, who now resides in Crawford.
30 Years Ago
October 31, 1994
The Alliance Public Schools will dismiss classes in all schools at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 2. The football playoff game between the Alliance Bulldogs and the Blair Bears will begin at 2:30 p.m. at Bulldog Stadium.
25 Years Ago
October 30, 1999
Are the old and new Alliance Fire Halls haunted? The old fire hall, which now houses the Building and Zoning Department, was used from 1934 until 1982 when the new Fire Department was built. Alliance Fire Chief David McCarty doesn’t have a lot to say about the new building, but he does have some impressions about the old hall.
20 Years Ago
October 30, 2004
The sugar beet harvest is almost complete, despite being behind a few days from rainy weather. This year’s harvest is looking good and is expected to be just as good, if not better than last year’s crop.
15 Years Ago
October 30, 2009
In September, The American Legion’s Chairman of the House Committee Dick Foland and The American Legion’s Vice Commander Tom Hoerler had a tough choice to make. Both had signed on to take charge of a financial situation plaguing the Alliance American Legion Post No. 7 and found the debt it had accrued to be nearly unmanageable. Shortly after discovering that the total debt of the Legion amounted to $15,000, they decided to hold open-to-the-public meetings in order to openly discuss what could and should be done. A group of approximately 30 showed up to listen to the problems, state their opinions and to offer help.
10 Years Ago
October 30, 2014
Tuesday evening the Hemingford Chamber hosted their first appreciation dinner at St. Bidget’s Parish Center with a potato bar, ice cream sundae bar, music from Shane Keane, a speech from Hemingford Chamber President Kathy Gettert and honored guest Gina Jespersen, 2014 Miss Rodeo Nebraska.
5 Years Ago
October 30, 2019
With several mailboxes being taken or damaged in Alliance and rural parts of Box Butte County on Oct. 15, law enforcement has been searching for those responsible.
*Compiled from The Alliance Times-Herald Archives by staff.