100 years ago:
April 3, 1924
Grange Formed Here with 43 Members
With many residents of this city and its outlying valleys and many visitors from other parts of the county present, a new subordinate grange was organized in Healdsburg Monday night. The organization meeting was held in Red Men’s Hall, 43 persons having signed as charter members. The charter is to be kept open until next Saturday, when a meeting will be held for the purpose of closing it.
ln the meantime National Organizer H. A. Craig will remain here and, accompanied by officers of the new organization, will visit with various persons in the section in an endeavor to double the number of charter members. Master of the State Grange George R. Harrison and Mr. Craig, who is also overseer of the state grange, had charge of the institution of the grange here.
The new organization is the second Grange in Healdsburg, Progressive Grange having been active in the interests of the residents of the rural sections here for some 20 years until it disbanded about four years ago.
75 years ago:
April 1, 1949
Need for Second Elementary School Aired at Citizens’ Meeting Here
The pending and present overcrowded conditions of the Healdsburg Union Elementary School have resulted in action by the school’s Board of Trustees and a 15-person citizens’ committee appointed to aid the Trustees to alleviate present conditions and plan for the expansion of the physical school property to take care of increased enrollment known to be forthcoming.
Present and forecasted enrollment figures compiled by Byron Gibbs, school principal, convinced the Board of Trustees and the citizens’ committee that action is necessary immediately to take care of the increasingly heavy enrollment scheduled to confront the school during the next tabulated nine years.
Gibbs’ figures, based on the birth rate for this area, reveal the high point in elementary school enrollment to come in the 1956-1957 school year. He pointed out that the figures do not necessarily mean the increase in enrollment would stop at that time, but stressed that present birth rate figures projected to that date are actual. After 1957, he said, enrollment figures must necessarily be based on opinion and not fact.
50 years ago
April 4, 1974
Marble-slingshot spree hits downtown businesses, schools
Some person or group had a smashing good time last Thursday night by methodically breaking large windows the length of Healdsburg Avenue and Center Street. Police are looking for someone possessing a high-powered slingshot and the remains of a bag of marbles.
Preliminary estimates from a half-dozen of the worst hit businesses amount to more than $4,600. Police report windows were not shattered but left with a dime sized hole. Perhaps hardest hit was Rosenberg and Bush, at North and East Sts., and Value World, 461 Healdsburg Ave., owned by the Rosenbergs.
First to be reported hit was St. John’s School at Tucker and Fitch Sts. at 8:09 p.m. Soon the police telephone was ringing with calls of other damage. Among those losing the largest windows were First National Bank, 511 Healdsburg Ave.; Maherajah Waterski, 226 Healdsburg Ave.; and Sonoma County Farm Supply, 82 Healdsburg Ave.
Research and materials provided by the Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society. The Museum, located at 221 Matheson St., is open 11am to 4pm, Thursdays through Sundays.
