Past Pages July 26

130 YEARS AGO

Cow fruit: The manager of a Bodie boarding house lost all her boarders. She bought some genuine ranch butter and put it on the table. The roast beef demolishers noticed a change in the cow fruit and thought the madam was trying to ring in oleomargarine on them. (Bodie Free Press)

All sorts: Mischievous boys in Virginia City send up kites with lighted tails to deceive the local astronomers.

120 YEARS AGO

Doc Benton: No man in this city deserves more heartfelt thanks than Doc Benton. Without the timely forethought of Benton a lot of us would be dead. Just imagine the town without ice for a week. Ice is now delivered to any part of the city.

70 YEARS AGO

Crooner Rudy Vallee has made imprints of his hands and feet adjoining those of his radio colleague John Barrymore at the entrance to Grauman's Chinese theater.

50 YEARS AGO

Carson High School cheerleaders left to attend a week-long session of Cheer Leaders School at the University of Redlands in Redlands, California. The four girls are Kathy Graham, Sandy Armstrong, Mary Parmenter and Judy Stewart.

20 YEARS AGO

Photo caption: Shade Cupp, Kevin Kranz and Spencer Mellum of the Bureau of Land Management's Silver State Hot Shot Team plant a fencepost near the historic Gold Hill Cemetery. The crew, a firefighting team, fenced a five-acre portion of the cemetery in two days.

10 YEARS AGO

A bill that would provide land (4.5 acres) to expand the Carson City Senior Center passed the U.S. House of Representatives. "Over the years, the senior citizen community of Carson City has grown, making the current Senior Citizens Center one of the most highly used public facilities in the region," according to Jim Gibbons, member of the House Resources Committee.

• Sue Ballew is the daughter of Bill Dolan, who wrote this column for the Nevada Appeal from 1947 until his death in 2006.