Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives 100 years ago

About 152 Russian farmers were heading toward Hartline, Wash., to establish a wheat-farming colony.

They had arrived from Russia 10 years earlier and had been farming in California and Mexico. Yet they had been looking for their own dry-land wheat farms and had been investigating “possibilities all over the West.”

They settled on Grant County, a place that offered them the best opportunities, they said. The farms were spread between Hartline and Wilson Creek.

“These are thrifty, experienced men,” said one of the local men who had recruited them. “They are all going on improved farms, with houses and barns all ready. Some previously occupied by our tenants were vacated February 1, so are ready for new arrivals.”

The people of Hartline held a mass meeting in order to plan a welcoming event for the new arrivals. They planned to supply several days of food for the Russians. This plan was complicated somewhat by the fact that this particular colony eats “no meat that has not been killed by them.” 

So Hartline residents were preparing bread, eggs and potatoes for the Russians.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1989: The Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.