The Thorp Courier (Thorp, WI)
 January 6, 2010
Transcribed by Dolores Mohr Kenyon

Old Items Taken from The Thorp Courier files of 1910-1935-1960-1985-2000

100 Years Ago (1910)

Geo. Deuel is again the editor and proprietor of the Owen Enterprise, having bought out J. T. Flint last week.
 
The Thorp Telephone Co. and the Reseburg Mutual Telephone Co. have each issued new directories to their patrons.  The two systems have about 170 phones combined and are adding new ones continuously.
 
Stanley Sunbeams – Miss Clara John of Cannon Falls, MN is engaged to teach the kindergarten of the Stanley Schools in the place of Miss Fanny Scribner who resigned.

75 Years Ago (1935)

Eidsvold Epitome – About 50 children gathered at the Charles Flunker store here Monday afternoon.  Old Santa Claus came and gave them each a sack of candy and nuts and an apple.
 
Rolling Meadows – Stanley Sawczuk and Harry Badzinski of the CCC camps, who spent the weekend at the homes of their parents, returned (to) their camps on Thursday.
 
Pineland Corners – With the coming of cold and snow news is getting scarce.  Must be that people are returning to the more staid enjoyments in life.  After all, we must learn to appreciate snow once again.

50 Years Ago (1960)

The Thorpettes of Thorp High School is a marching and dancing group of 24 girls, under the direction of Mrs. Carl Mehls.  They entertain between halves of the Thorp High basketball games and other occasions.
 
Winter, whose mild manners this season lulled local residents into a false sense of security unleashed a wallop, which let the Thorp area completely cold the last three days.  Traffic fatalities and accidents in Taylor County in 1959 exceeded the record of 1958.

25 Years Ago (1985)

PFC Cathleen Lewandowski, daughter of Bob and Maryann Lewandowski, was recently promoted to the rank of Specialist Four.
 
The Thorp Fire Department was summoned to the Melvin Haas residence, 100 E. Wilson St. Thorp, just before noon Monday, Dec. 31 to extinguish a chimney fire.
 
A tragic aspect of life is that all too often people have to lose their lives before a problem is identified and acted upon.  An example of such a tragedy is the Washington St. Crossing with the Soo Line Railroad.  The latest person to lose their life at the problem intersection was Jeanne M. Olson, formerly of Thorp, when the vehicle she was driving was struck by a Soo Line freight train on Dec. 14.

10 Years Ago (2000)

 
All that fluffy white stuff called snow can add up to quite a heavy load of work for the Thorp city employees. Sunday’s 8” snowfall had to be removed before Thorp could do ‘business as usual’ this past Monday.  City workers began plowing on Sunday around 1 p.m. finishing about 5 p.m.
 
While New York was getting ready for its famous Times Square New Year event, little towns like Thorp and county governments were polishing their emergency contingency plans.  Thorp, which had already replaced its computers and purchased back-up generators for city wells and the waste treatment plant, made  sure that city employees were familiar with what to do in the event of a major Y2K problem.