This day in history: Last pair of trumpeter swans in Washington made home at Turnbull. Chewelah was building new high school

From 1976: The Spokesman-Review ran a photo of two trumpeter swans at the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge and noted that they “part of the only flock of trumpeters existing in Washington State.”

Students and faculty at the Turnbull Environmental and Research-Teaching Center had been conducting studies of these and other species in the refuge – despite the fact that the state Legislature had yet to appropriate funds to equip the center.

Since then, trumpeter swans have made a comeback in the region. Today, trumpeter swans are permanent residents and remain a common sight on Turnbull’s lakes and ponds.

From 1926: Chewelah was preparing to build a “new $55,000 modern high school building, to include a gymnasium with showers and dressing rooms, an auditorium to seat 300, physics and chemistry laboratories, a library and a home economics department.”

The editors of The Spokesman-Review said the citizens of Chewelah should be especially proud, because their city was already notable as the site of two historic education milestones.

In 1869, Chewelah erected the “first public school building in the vast region extending from the Idaho line to the Columbia River, and from the Canadian border to the Snake River.”

Even earlier, in 1828, two traveling Protestant missionaries “gave religious instruction to many Indians who had gathered in from the surrounding region.” This could be considered “the first feeble beginning of religious and educational culture in this region,” said the S-R editors.

Meanwhile, The Spokesman-Review gave its editorial endorsement to a Spokane Public Schools $690,000 tax bond issue on the ballot in two days for the Spokane Public Schools.

“More school room space is vitally needed and the expenditure of funds, if voted, would relieve the situation materially and make it possible to maintain the high teaching standard and general efficiency without burdening the taxpayer unduly,” the editorial said.