Past Pages for Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015

150 years ago

A dwarf engine. One of the most curious articles of an exhibition now being held in England is a steam engine and boiler, in miniature, and described as the smallest steam engine in the world. It stands at exactly two inches in height, and covered with a glass shade. The flywheel is made of gold and with steam arms, makes seven thousand revolutions per minute. The manufacturer says six drops of water will drive the engine eight minutes.

130 years ago

Jim Geddes. It is always a dead loss to a town when a cook of extraordinary ability leaves it. Good cooking aids digestion, and when the digestion of a community is good, there is less of the bile and gall of bitterness when the town is obliged to subsist upon botched work in the kitchen. Before leaving, he assured the reporter that his successor at the Ormsby was his best behaved pupil, although perhaps not as graceful.

100 years ago

Experience is man’s best teacher, but she keeps his pants frazzled out at the heels hustling around to pay the tuition fees.

70 years ago

The Rambler, by Wes Davis. The old story of the country boy going to the city and coming home sadder and wiser was told yesterday at Rotary in a more modern manner. Two innocent school superintendents from Fallon went to Salt Lake to bring home some needed government “surplus commodities.” After two months after returning home of constant contact, guess what they got? Absolutely nothing.

50 years ago

(Photo caption) Up and Down appears to be the fate of this — and similar — signs which have been appearing along Highway 395 N. recently. The sign reads: “You are now entering Carson City, Nevada. Motorists, watch out for ‘collapsing state government.’”

30 years ago

Nevada State Prison authorities may learn early Friday whether lethal injections truly are the most humane way to execute inmates on Death Row. Serial killer Carroll Edward Cole will become the first person in Nevada executed by lethal injection.

Trent Dolan is the son of Bill Dolan, who wrote this column for the Nevada Appeal from 1947 until his death in 2006.