The New Era - All about Sweet Home since 1929

Dec. 28, 1972

Wally Mathers bought the Frontier Room and Tourist Cafe from Rose Carter, who owned the Main Street business for 18 years.

Mathers will operate the Frontier Room but will continue leasing the Tourist Cafe to D.L. and Frances Fleury, who previously purchased Wally’s Market at Foster from Mathers and changed the name to Hilltop Market.

Mathers operated a service station when he first came to Sweet Home 30 years ago, and later started the city’s  rst cab company.

Editorial: The future of Sweet Home rests on the sanitary sewer treatment plant $325,000 bond election scheduled for next week.

The city has its back to the wall, forced there by the Deptartment of Environmental Quality edict that the city must have construction started on a new sewage treatment plant by mid-1973.

If the city does not comply, new building permits and further sewage hook-ups will be prohibited by the state. If the bond does not pass, costs could be well in excess of $1 million after the fact.

Once again the inadequacies of the high school building were emphasized when a large electrical fuse blew out in one of the main hallways.

Principal Kerry Moran said this is a common problem the last two years, but this time the fuse went with an explosion that “more than startled those within the vicinity.”

The Sweet Home Jaycees awarded ribbons to the best homes with Christmas lighting.

A.E. Brubaker won first place in the religious category, while his neighbor took second; both live on Route 1, Liberty.

Olson Radio and TV Shop took first place in the commercial division, with Ace Cabinet Works in second.

First in the novelty category was Bob Brockway (951 Oak Terrace), while Mona Waibel took second (940 Oak Terrace).

Mel Haynes (3011 Harding) and W.J. Nicklous (Rt. 1, Liberty) won first and second, respectively, for the residential category (Merle Plummer (1347 Westwood Ln.) earned an honorable mention.

Increased printing and building rental costs have forced the New Era to increase the newsstand price of the newspaper from 10 cents to 15 cents.

Subscription prices of $5 per year in Linn County and $6 outside the county will remain the same.

Dec. 24 and 31, 1992

Sweet Home volunteer firefighters delivered holiday gifts to 181 families (475 children) for its Sharing Tree project coordinated by Kim Brown and Mike Beaver. The tradition is an extension of what began here in the 1940s when firemen repaired metal toys and delivered them to area families.

City Manager Craig Martin is considering bringing the 911 dispatch service to Sweet Home. The emergency number is currently answered by Linn County dispatchers who transfer the call back to Sweet Home.

Difficulties with 911 and dispatch services began during the 1996 flood when the dispatchers were answering calls for the whole county.

More recently, Linn County had trouble transferring a call back to Sweet Home when it encountered a message that all circuits were busy, likely due to increased Internet usage.

Project architects presented two plans for the new Community Center which will include the Senior Center and Boys & Girls Club.

The first plan put the Senior Center on the south end of the facility, the Community Center in the middle, and the club at the north end.

The second plan placed the Community Center on the south end and the Senior Center in the middle. The Community Center Committee chose the second floor plan.

Some 200 junior high students are participating in a class called Future Makers, a program that encourages inventiveness and creativity in problem solving. Developed for grades six to eight, students look at home, school, businesses and the workplace to see if there are systems or an invention idea they can come up with out of it.