20 years ago in the Homer News

A leaking gas tank at the Trailside General Store on the Sterling Highway prompted an emergency response from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. However, the leak didn’t require closing the store or the Legislative Information Office, which rents office space in the building. Water also had leaked earlier into the underground tanks, causing Trailside to shut down sales several weeks ago.

— From the issue of May 6, 1999

30 years ago in the Homer News

An oil spill cleanup crew from the F/V Anna Lane went to Gore Point and found a half-mile swatch of shin-deep oil on the beach. In two days they collected 676 seabirds. Fisherman Drew Scalzi photographed the gruesome find. Because the birds were too heavy to carry across piles of driftwood above the beach and across the isthmus to where the Anna Lane anchored in Port Dick, the crew piled the birds and burned them.

“It really hits you, to see that so close to Homer,” Scalzi said. “It leaves you with the impression that you want to find someplace else to live.”

— From the issue of May 4, 1989

50 years ago in the Homer News

The May 6, 1969, issue is missing from the Homer News archives.