Jim Kershner’s This Day in History

From our archives, 100 years ago

A 1910 census “enumerator” in Spokane relayed the following story:

He went to the door of what he called an “old maid.” He asked one of the required questions: her age.

She refused to tell.

He promised not to reveal it to anyone else. She still refused. He told her she could be arrested. She still refused.

Finally, as a joke, he said he would have to “examine her teeth.”

“With the utmost sangfroid, she took her teeth out and handed them to me for inspection,” said the amused enumerator. “I put her age down at 50, and she smiled when she saw the figure. I was satisfied and I know she was.”

From the college beat: A total of 30 students were scheduled to graduate from Spokane College in spring of 1910.

What was Spokane College? It was a United Norwegian Lutheran college founded in 1906, occupying an imposing brick structure on 29th Avenue near Grand Boulevard, where Manito Shopping Center now stands. The college disbanded in 1929 and the building was taken over by Spokane Junior College in 1936.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1789: The mutiny on HMS Bounty took place as the crew set Capt. William Bligh and 18 sailors adrift in the South Pacific. … 1958: The U.S. conducted the first of 35 nuclear test explosions in the Pacific Proving Ground as part of Operation Hardtack I.