THIS WEEK IN HISTORY.

Byline: The Register-Guard

1877: A fire broke out at the home of Dr. Patterson in the eastern part of town near the university. The fire started in a stovepipe and spread to the kitchen roof. Mrs. Patterson discovered the blaze. She sprang out a window and tossed several tubs of water on the flames, which were "extinguished before anyone came to her assistance, and after half of the roof had been burned off."

1907: Sluggish, as snakes go: A rancher on a branch of Spencer Creek reported killing 17 rattlesnakes on his land. That's a lot of snakes, the report acknowledged, but nothing like the number that swarmed the Spencer Butte area in the old days, according to old-timers, and not nearly as dangerous as snakes found farther east. "While as poisonous as the black mountain rattlers found so often in the Cascades, these are not so energetic and not so often looking for trouble," the newspaper said.

1937: Eight cases of amebic dysentery were reported to the Lane County health department from July 26 through Aug. 3, it was announced in an official statement from the city board of health. No new cases have been found since. The board of health prepared the statement after considerable investigation following persistent rumor of an "epidemic" of amebiosia here.

1977: In the middle of one of the driest summers on record, the Willamette Valley baked in a blistering heat wave, with temperatures reaching into the high 90s and even the low 100s. Because of extreme fire danger, logging operations on state and private forest lands in eastern Lane and Linn counties and the Willamette National Forest were ordered shut down and restrictions were placed on public use. Among a rash of fires in the area, a pair of wind-driven blazes seared more than 1,000 acres and destroyed homes, outbuildings and livestock west of Junction City.

The Springfield School Board voted 4-1 to adopt "Matter: An Earth Science" as an eighth-grade textbook, despite the contention by board member Bob Johnson that the book favors the evolution theory and fails to give equal treatment to the creation theory of man's origin. Johnson, a self-described fundamentalist Christian, also objected to two reading texts, "Signposts" and "Milestones," but the board deferred action on those. Board Chairman Bill Medford said some of Johnson's references to violence in "Milestones" "seemed a little ridiculous."

2006 (left): Eugene travelers and millions of others around the country faced chaotic conditions at the nation's airports after strict new security measures were hurriedly put in place following a report that terrorists planned to blow up as many as 10 aircraft. The measures forced passengers to throw out all liquids - including toiletries, wine and milk from baby bottles - before boarding a plane.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez on Aug. 10 declared commercial salmon fishing a failure off Oregon and California this year, based on sharp harvest cutbacks imposed to protect struggling returns to the Klamath River. The formal declaration, the first since 1992 to come before the end of the fishing season, makes it possible for members of Congress to seek up to $80 million in aid that has been stymied for lack of a declaration. The Commerce estimate was based on projections that fishermen will land only 12 percent of the fish they have averaged the past five years.