100 Years Ago

RESIDENTS of Skipton and the surrounding area flocked to see one of the most gigantic exhibitions ever seen in Skipton at the time. The world famous Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show dropped into town, staging a re-enactment of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The show was staged on a field near the railway station with an afternoon and evening performance.

Colonel WF Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, and his ensemble of 800 cowboys, war painted Indians and horses had toured Britain for 28 weeks for their last ever appearances in Britain. The spectacular event included a series of spectacular "historical" scenes some with Buffalo Bill himself. One performance illustrated picturesque life on Western American plains while 'Custer's Last Fight' provided a representation of the final battles of the Indian Wars, presumably not the massacres of innocent native women and children. Other acts included clever exhibitions of horsemanship in 'Cowboy Fun,' demonstrations with lassos by Mexicans and an amazing bicycle leap in which Geo C Davis descended from 85 feet onto a platform that propelled him 45 feet into the air. The show was packed away within two hours of closing the evening performance, departing in 49 railway cars, leaving a stunned Skipton behind.

The Herald complained that a legacy of the show was the whoops each night by youngsters whose imagination had been fired by Buffalo Bill's Indians. They were a "head-splitting nuisance" opined the paper.

Embsay British School was to be transferred from its owners, the New Church Society, a group of Nonconformists, to the county council. But the report of the county council said the school building had many defects, lavatories and cloakrooms were required and the school equipment was poor in every way. The British School had been founded in the 1840s and the Church of England School in the village some time later.

A fire destroyed the five storey cotton mill at Ingleton. It had been lying idle for 20 years. Next door to the mill was the Ingleton gas works but an explosion had been avoided by letting gas escape and cutting the connections.

50 Years Ago

SKIPTON Doctor JG Ollerenshaw gave a talk to a packed audience at the Temperance Hall about his three week stay in Russia, who at that time were locked in the Cold War with the West. He said that there were far more doctors per head of the population than in Britain "but the majority of them were women". He was impressed with the work done to prevent illness but had the impression that there was too much specialising, with doctors sending patients on to a specialist rather than dealing with a variety of illnesses themselves.

Barnoldswick newsagents refused to stock American "horror" comics. The probation officer for Skipton Mr A Simpson welcomed their action and said they promoted a "tendency to seek an unhealthy type of adventure. Such comics, he feared, were even finding their way into the rural parts of Craven.

An Earby family asked the local council for fresh accommodation because their home in Melrose Street was haunted. The family, including nine children, were all sleeping downstairs because of the ghostly goings-on upstairs at their home. The Peasey family refused to even go upstairs to the toilet, relying on neighbours' goodwill instead.

25 Years Ago

A Silsden bride did not let the fact that Silsden Methodist Chapel did not have any church bells spoil her big day and hopes for a traditional wedding. She bought a record of bells, put it on a tape and then hired a mobile disco to blast out the sound as she arrived at the church and as she left with her husband afterwards.

Craven District Council turned down a request from Skipton Town Council and refused to alter its policy on Sunday trading. It decided to vigorously uphold the law and not allow any exemptions.

10 Years Ago

THERE was a dramatic end to the last ever day of Settle Court. A fight broke out in the waiting room and canvas chairs were thrown about, prompting the police to dash in from the station next door to break it up. No charges were made and it was not clear what had caused the fighting.

The Settle court, which had previously been the dance hall of a hotel, was closed despite a protest by local residents, because, claimed the Lord Chancellor's department, it was under-used. The dubious honour of being the last case ever heard in Settle fell to a Newsholme man who was fined £180 for failing to maintain stop lamps and direction indicators on a JCB in Langcliffe. Settle defendants and witnesses would now have to travel to Skipton for all cases.