Out of the Past: Telegraph service restored to Valley; Governor to attend Echo Glen School groundbreaking

Published 12:59 pm Friday, August 7, 2015

The following stories happened this week, 25 and 50 years ago, as reported in the Snoqualmie Valley Record. From the Record’s archives:

• The Evergreen Chapter of the Morse Telegraph Club has restored partial telegraph service between the depots on the Snoqualmie Valley Railroad as of July 29. Souvenir telegrams will be transmitted for citizens using 100-year-old equipment. The nominal contribution of $1 per telegram goes to the Puget Sound Railway Historical Association to defray cost of special wire required.

• The Goodwill Games and Arts Festival have been of consuming interest over the past two weeks. There have been many activities arranged for our vistors from the once-aloof Soviet Union, including a dozen “citizens’ initiative” conferences. One that brought a Russian delegation to Snoqualmie last week was on juvenile and family law.

Thursday, Aug. 5, 1965

• Negotiations between the Department of Defense and the Cascade Telephone company for a multi-million dollar communications facility in North Bend are are expected to be completed soon, U.S. Senator Henry M. Jackson told the Record by telephone from Washington D.C. The contact will be for a 10-year period.  The facility will handle military communications throughout the Northwest, Jackson said. “Scheduled to be in operation in about two years, it will connect Northwest military installations with others in this country and abroad,” he said.

• Ground breaking ceremonies marking the beginning of construction of the Echo Glen School near Preston will be Aug. 6. Governor Evans and Dr. Garrett Heyns, director of the Dept. of Institutions, will preside. The new Echo Glen School will be a modern facility for the rehabilitation of the state’s youngest juvenile offenders and will replace the Martha Washington and Luther Burbank Schools.