Mark Read/Page From The Past
(Editor’s note: This feature compiled by the Novato Historical Society highlights Marin history through the pages of the Novato Advance. )
100 Years Ago
July 1920
— Dewey Ricioni is receiving treatment at the Petaluma hospital for blood poisoning in his hand.
— Two well diggers have discovered on the Louis Kovaof ranch a vein of quartz thought to contain gold values and now the whole neighborhood has gone gold crazy. Specimens of the ore have been sent to San Francisco to be assayed, and in the meantime nearby landowners have visions of sudden wealth.
75 Years Ago
July 1945
— Tech. Sgt. Glenn Hall returned home last Thursday night bringing with him a remarkably interesting story of his experiences while a German prisoner of war. An upper turret-gunner on a B-17, Glenn and his crew were forced to bail out on their seventh mission near Minden in western Germany, on Nov. 26, 1944, when their plane caught on fire. Glenn landed in the front yard of a small German farm and was immediately taken prisoner by the farmer and later turned over to German soldiers. Following were 43 days of marching and changing camps, interspersed by abuse by the German civilian population, often having to be protected from serious bodily harm by the German guards. Glenn states that the food was barely palatable, consisting mostly of potatoes and turnips made into sort of a gruel. Many of the boys became sick on the marches and were either forced out altogether or taken on wagons until they were able to walk again. There were about 6,000 prisoners on the march that Glenn was a member of. Glenn and his fellow prisoners were finally liberated by the British after the Germans had fled, when they learned of the approach of the British and Russians. Day of liberation was on April 16, 1945. The boys were taken to Liverpool, England, and subsequently came to New York and home.
— J.E. McDermed compelled to move his garden shop from the Scott building leased to the Pini Hardware Co., has leased quarters in the Verissimo building on Grant Avenue next to the First Baptist church.
50 Years Ago
July 1970
— Novato school children will not be riding the bus to school during the coming school year. The school board decided Monday there is not enough money to operate the service. So, come September the children will be walking to school. The only exception is the handicapped, who will get bus service. Bus service could be restored, however, if voters approve a school tax increase July 28. Many services, including the school lunch program, rest on the outcome of the tax election.
— The public reaction to last week’s cut in the athletic program by the Novato school board was mixed, depending to whom you talked. Some, in conversations with the Advance, accused the board of pressure tactics to force a favorable vote in the tax increase election scheduled for later this month. However, there has been little outcry, according to school board members. They reported only a few phone calls, and no one showed up at Monday’s school board meeting to protest the budget slash that eliminated all seventh- and eighth-grade sports, three high school varsity sports and “B” basketball. Further cuts made by the board this week.
25 Years Ago
July 1995
The price of garbage may well be going up in Novato – at least the cost of hauling the garbage away. Novato City Manager Rod Wood is proposing a solid waste franchise fee that he says could bring as much as $750,000 in annual revenue to the city. Technically, the fee would be levied against the Novato Sanitary District. The fee will undoubtedly make its way down from the sanitary district, through the garbage hauler, Novato Disposal Service, to the customers. The new fee could mean a 15 percent increase for Novato Disposal District customers. For the average homeowner, the new city fee would mean that the pickup of one garbage can would increase from $10.43 to $12 a month and for each additional can increase from $6.21 to $7.15. Cost for the dumpsters used by businesses would jump from $125.50 to $144. Wood said the fee is justified because of the impact garbage trucks have on city streets and because of the cost the city incurs in administering state-mandated recycling programs.
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