A look Back …This week in the Forks Forum

Published 1:30 am Thursday, July 24, 2025

This week, twenty-five years ago, the Fly-In and Feast of Forks were set to happen on the weekend. ONP was studying goats. It had been a rainy Quileute Days, Michele Ward was Royalty and the Penns were the Grand Marshals (photo). Marge Archibald was retiring from Bank of America! Deanna Mohr of Clallam Bay High School had won FCCLA gold at Nationals in Florida.

This week in 1975 the Forks Lions Club was donating time and local logging companies’ materials to redo the Forks High School track (photo). La Push resident John Jackson had hand-carved a cedar canoe. Rayonier had delivered him a log, 4.5 ft. by 30 ft., Jackson said he had learned the skill from his father (photo). Work on new baseball diamonds had begun at Tillicum Park. It was reported that Ernie Nielsen’s Berger crew had, with shovel operator Gary Kilmer, had broken the company record …sending out 41 loads of logs in 10 hours. Fourteen-year-old David West and 15-year-old Thane Shelton had left on a bicycle trip to Victoria. The friends planned to camp along the way.

This week in 1968, Ralph Capoeman had won the Quileute Days canoe races in the Valerie Lee. This was the 2nd year for the race,s and all had gone well. It was anticipated they would happen again the next year. The Forks Ambulance crew had posed for a photo featuring the ambulances and new equipment (photo).

In 1953, Lloyd Beebe (founder Olympic Game Farm) came to the West End to acquire two cougar cubs. A Disney photographer had accompanied him. The cubs were to appear in an upcoming Disney movie. Longtime Forks grocer M.L. Gabrielson had passed. It was reported that a million ft. a day was being salvaged in the Forks Burn area (USFS land). A new fire alert phone system had been set up in volunteers’ homes and businesses, the siren on the fire hall was also to alert volunteers that they were being called out. Dudley Maxfield had sent a letter to the Forum while at the Boy Scout National Jamboree camp in California. He shared that he had also gone to Knox Berry Farm.