Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives,

100 years ago

The prosecuting attorney of Benton County was going on the warpath against Yakima Foam in 1910.

That was a soft drink manufactured in Yakima. The problem was, it wasn’t particularly “soft.”

The county had the drink analyzed and found it to contain 2.95 percent alcohol by weight – more than some beers. The attorney vowed to prosecute all of the soda fountains that were selling it.

From the holiday file: News was trickling in from small towns across the region about their Fourth of July celebrations. Most included baseball games, horse races and fireworks.

A few towns, however, had their own distinctive events. Usk, Wash., had what the paper called a “squaw canoe race” between two teams of women over a quarter-mile course. Grangeville, Idaho, had a “bucking” competition, although it wasn’t clear if it involved the rodeo kind of bucking or the lumberjack kind.

The celebration in Egypt, Wash., (in Lincoln County) included a live telephone feed so that the results of the Jeffries-Johnson prize fight (which came to be known as the “Fight of the Century”) could be announced, round by round.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1930: Construction began on Boulder Dam (later Hoover Dam).