This day in history: Experts issued warnings on Spokane Valley aquifer. Coeur d’Alene woman inherited a fortune.

From 1976: Experts were issuing more warnings about the safety of the aquifer beneath the Spokane Valley.

The county was advised to request federal funds to test the aquifer for contamination, and also to develop a wastewater management plan to protect it in the future.

That was the recommendation of an advisory committee formed by the Spokane County Health District.

Officials were increasingly concerned that the aquifer might be contaminated, but so far nobody was sure of the contamination levels, or of the sources of the contamination.

One study showed that “the aquifer probably was being contaminated,” but the results were not conclusive.

The most serious concern was that contaminated surface water was reaching the aquifer.

From 1926: Helena Sheldon, a young Coeur d’Alene woman, “has been left the bulk of the $1 million estate of Miss Martha Filer, who died in France recently.”

Filer had inherited the estate “from relatives who were timber operators.” She was touring France when she died. She was the “lifelong friend of Mrs. J.J. Staley, the grandmother of Miss Sheldon.”

Sheldon was “studying art in the East since she graduated from Coeur d’Alene High School two years ago.” She had studied art in both Chicago and New York.

“The education has been financed by Miss Filer,” said the Spokane Chronicle.