120 years ago  

Professor D. Cooper of Ogden, Utah, has been offered an inducement to come and give an exhibition of his aerial ascending ability during fair week. If he accepts the offer of our fair directors, Susanville residents can expect a grand treat.

Enough venison to feast the entire community reached cold storage in Susanville since the opening of hunting season and all without incident arrest. Most of the returning huntsmen declare that the buck of the current season are comparatively small, but one hunter claimed a mule deer that weighed 192 pounds.

30 years ago   

A Department of Developmental Services program development fund grant was awarded to the Susanville Independent Living Training Project, Inc.   

The grant of $25,705 was marked as start-up money to begin training programs for developmentally disabled adults who were ready to learn independent living skills.

20 years ago  

At a recent Rotary Club meeting, Lassen County Administrative Officer Bill Bixby compared himself to Colonel William Travis, the commander of the troops who perished at the Alamo, as he painted a very bleak picture for the future of Lassen County.    

Bixby said he could imagine someone asking Travis how he liked his post so far and that the colonel might answer, “I really don’t know. I’ve been putting the guns out and building up the walls, but that dust cloud out to the south kind of worries me a little bit.”   

Bixby said, “I feel the same way, only the dust cloud is coming from Sacramento.” Bixby was complaining about the legislature’s decision to require counties to fund state-mandated programs.

10 years ago   

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the principal federal public health agency involved with hazardous waste issues, has launched an investigation to determine if the public’s health is threatened by the open pit and open burning the demilitarization activities at the Sierra Army Depot near Herlong.       

According to ATSDR, the agency’s mission is to “prevent harm to human health and diminished quality of life from exposure to hazardous substances found at waste sites, in unplanned releases, and in other sources of pollution present in the environment.”

Five years ago   

The Susanville City Council will decide tomorrow, Wednesday, Sept. 15 to determine if it will change current natural gas rates.   

According to the gas rate cash flow spreadsheet the consumer price per therm for natural gas will remain the same but a new construction will be added.  

If the rate change is adopted, the consumer will pay an additional 22 cents per therm surcharge. Consumers will pay $1.20 per therm for the first 45 decatherms and then $1.02 per therm. Those prices are unchanged.

Last year   

The fourth annual Susanville Relay for Life ended early when a thunderstorm came through the area on Saturday, Aug. 1, causing numerous fires.   

For safety reasons the relay committee decided to end the 24-hour walk moments before the popular and emotional luminaria ceremony was to begin.   

During the ceremony the lights at Arnold Field on Lassen High School’s campus are darkened and hundreds of luminaria become the only light source as walkers stop and remember those who succumbed to the deadly tendrils of cancer or are surviving its death grip. To many, the luminaria ceremony is the catharsis needed for healing.   

The Relay for Life committee said it would work hard to reschedule the ceremony and announces the Lassen County Fair has provided a venue for a makeup luminaria ceremony and is providing a way for relay participants to have a time of remembrance and closure for this year's Relay for Life event.       

The ceremony will begin at about 9:30 p.m. after the last stock car race on the grassy area just outside the Lassen County grandstands.