This day in history: Arab investment group considers purchase of town of George, Wash.

From 1975: The town of George, Washington, was up for sale – and it looked as if an Arab investment group might buy it.

The corporation that owned three-quarters of the town, population about 300, confirmed that it had offered its entire property to a group represented by a Lebanese attorney. The group was mulling the offer.

George had been an incorporated town only since 1961, and it had “never lived up to its founder’s dreams.” Charles E. Brown had purchased the town site in 1955 from the Bureau of Reclamation, but he had sold most of it before his death. A Realtor reported that “George has been for sale for some time.”

There was no word on how a sale might affect the town’s most notable landmark, a truck stop cafe named Martha’s Inn.

From 1925: A man known only as “Old Dad” had been living for 40 years in his “hermitage” – half cave, half cabin – on the west bank of the Spokane River not far from Fort George Wright.

Old Dad said that he first arrived on the Spokane River while he was trapping muskrats. He found a fresh, cool spring gushing from the hillside and camped there. When winter approached, he decided to stay – and never left.

He built a ramshackle cabin over the entrance to a cave and planted a garden. The soldiers at Fort Wright were fond of going to visit him and listen to his tales of the pioneer days. He kept a pot of tea warm for visitors.