March 28, 2024

Looking Back in to Newton History

The Newton Daily News reported:  In his Running Rampant column, Dan Ehl observed on Oct. 13, 1988, that Fall is here, the geese are flying south and the crows will be arriving in Newton soon to divide Newton into sections so that each crow gets its own garbage bag to destroy on pick-up days. Maytag Corporation buildings were changing appearance and purpose as the Plant One east building was demolished and re-built to house corporate offices. Additional Plant One buildings were demolished to make way for a proposed shopping mall.  Maytag Corporation sales climbed to $490.7 million in the third quarter of 1988, 3.8% higher than the same period in 1987. Newton Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Glenn Kohler announced plans to line First Avenue with luminaries for the Christmas season.  He asked area residents to help supply the necessary 4,000 one-gallon milk jugs for the project.  The Capitol II Theater held a ribbon-cutting to unveil the renovation of the previous one theater into two theaters. Newton City Council member Corine Hadley cut the ribbon with theater manager Dorman Hundling and Chamber of Commerce members looking on.

10 years ago

The Newton Daily News reported: Newton school officials announced a $311,000 cut in state school aid due to a loss of 60 students over the past year.  They announced enrollment of 3,398 students in Newton schools in 2003 (enrollment was 5,049 students in 1963).  The Newton City Council voted down a proposal to demolish the former Dewarco storage building at the intersection of North Fifth Avenue West and West Third Street North (it would later become the Centre for Arts and Artists). The Jasper County Board of Supervisors approved a loan to the City of Colfax to help fund a hotel at the city’s Interstate 80 interchange. After 34 years at Skiff Medical Center as a nurse and then Vice President of Patient Care Services, Lois Vogel retired from her position.  Ira Mitchell cut the ribbon at the official opening ceremony for his new automobile dealership located in Newton on Iowa Highway 14 south of Interstate 80.  A large deer, wandering through downtown Newton on Monday, October 20, 2003, evidently didn’t like his reflection in the window at Pappy’s Antique Mall. He charged and smashed one of the business’s plate glass windows. The deer escaped, evidently unharmed. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft docked at the International Space Station on October 20, 2003, carrying three astronauts as replacement crew members.  The U.S. space shuttle fleet had been grounded following the tragic disintegration of the Space Shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003.