Remember when you went to a hardware store for sporting goods? Perhaps a drug store for .22 shells or to Western Auto for a new shotgun? That's the way it was for most of the 20th century. Dedicated gun stores and large sporting goods stores seem like a modern invention. 

John T. Little opened his hardware and sporting goods store in downtown Spokane in 1902. It quickly became a popular spot for sportsmen to stop and tell fish stories and show off their trophies. Little gave out cash prizes for the first or largest of many game and fish species. But he had far more lasting impact in his other roles as county commissioner and board member of the Salvation Army.  Read about him in the Then and Now column in the Spokesman-Review Monday, Nov. 2. 

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