(No Ratings Yet)
Loading...The Tooele Transcript Bulletin has published Tooele County news since 1894. Here is a flashback of local front-page news from 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago that occurred during the fourth week of December.
Dec. 24-26, 1996
The $650 million chemical arms incinerator in Rush Valley was shut down for the fifth time as the Army’s lead safety official told a state commission the incinerator was unsafe.
The shutdown was the result of a jammed rocket in the feed gate in the explosives containment room of the plant, said Project Manager Tim Thomas.
The plant began processing rockets again a day later. Despite the shutdown, Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Knitzer said the incinerator posed no threat to the public or the environment.
Later in the week, if Grantsville officials agreed to annex 325 acres of land located in the “Hollywood” area of town into city limits — and also grant a zone change for that property from agriculture to residential — 10 acres of the land will be donated to Tooele County School District.
The donated land would probably be used for placement of an elementary school at some future date.
Dec. 21-24, 1971
A 73-year-old stockman was seriously burned late Sunday morning when flames destroyed his ranch home two miles south of Stockton on Highway 36.
Albert Young was listed in critical condition Monday morning at the Tooele Valley Hospital with third degree burns over nearly 80 percent of his body. His small ranch home was leveled by the fire.
An employee on the ranch for the past 16 years, Earnest Korthals, and a passing motorist, Floyd Workman pulled Mr. Young from the house.
Later in the week, new officers had been named to direct the Tooele County Chamber of Commerce for 1972.
Outgoing Chamber President David Schmidt said Ronald Christensen, an officer of Christensen-Griffith Construction Company, had been named president for 1972.
Also named as officers were Clyde Allen, Charles Lawrence, Gene Barbiero, and James Emerson.
The new officers would assume their responsibilities at the annual installation and past president banquet on Jan. 19 at the Tooele Army Depot Officers Club.
Dec. 24-27, 1946
Samuel L. Gillette, local theatre manager, returned home from New Orleans where he assisted in laying the groundwork for the Motion Picture Foundation.
Mr. Gillette was one of the 12 men in the United States on the originating committee which called the meeting in New Orleans for Dec. 3-5.
The purpose of the foundation would be to give material assistance to any person in need connected with the motion picture industry, and build up a research program for the betterment of anything connected with motion pictures.
Later in the week, six major accidents marked the Christmas holiday in Tooele County, with four hospitalized and several others painfully injured, according to Frank Eastman, State Highway Patrolman.
Two accidents occurred on the highway north of Tooele, another accident occurred when an auto slid down a 20-foot embankment ¾ of a mile south of Stockton sometime after midnight Christmas Eve.
Seven cars were involved in a series of smashups on the viaduct north of Tooele when one auto hit a slow moving car traveling in the same direction, and five other cars traveling through the fog crashed into the stalled autos, resulting in extensive damage to all cars.
Dec. 23, 1921
Tooele City’s departing mayor and some department members of the city council made monumental achievements during their recent terms in office. Achievements included a new fire department, opening a swimming pool and introducing a new accounting system.
The fire department, the swimming pool and the new business system of books introduced into the city’s accounting department, will all live as monuments to the present mayor and city council, whose term of office expires next Tuesday.
As time goes on each citizen who occupied any or all of these three improvements will have to acknowledge the wisdom and conservative progressive spirit that moved our city fathers to push these necessary improvements to a successful installment.
