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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Spokane was titillated by the escapades of Lady Sholto-Douglas, who claimed to be a British noblewoman. She and Lord Sholto-Douglas and their baby boy had arrived in Spokane a month earlier, supposedly bound for Canada. But she was promptly arrested for being intoxicated in the Northern Pacific rail yards.

A month later, the noble lady was discovered by Spokane police in a hotel room, but not with Lord Sholto-Douglas. She was with a “driver of a transfer wagon” and was arrested for “vagrancy.”

“She was disrobed when the police entered,” noted The Spokesman-Review.

From the desperado beat: A man wanted for murdering a man in a Colfax saloon was staging a last desperate stand in the mountains 30 miles east of Tekoa.

Earlier, the man (whose name was unknown) walked into a sheepherder’s camp, brandished a pistol and made off with a rifle, 63 cartridges, food and clothing. Later, he walked into a fire crew camp in the mountains and told the men that he had killed two men in California in addition to the man in Colfax. He told the fire crew that the police would never take him alive.

He was now thought to be holed up in the dense forest and crags of Idaho. Tracking dogs were on the way.