Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Two young women, described as 20 years old and “handsome,” survived a frightening confrontation with a robber on Maple Street, between Ninth and 10th avenues.

The women said they were out walking when they noticed a man lurking behind a tree. He then jumped out and grabbed one of the women. She screamed and ran.

Then the man grabbed the other woman, and waved a revolver in her face. He demanded that she turn over her purse.

Instead, she took out a steel hat pin and was about to stab him with it when …

From our archives, 100 years ago

Two young women, described as 20 years old and “handsome,” survived a frightening confrontation with a robber on Maple Street, between Ninth and 10th avenues.

The women said they were out walking when they noticed a man lurking behind a tree. He then jumped out and grabbed one of the women. She screamed and ran.

Then the man grabbed the other woman, and waved a revolver in her face. He demanded that she turn over her purse.

Instead, she took out a steel hat pin and was about to stab him with it when “the thought that she might cause a fatal wound palsied her arm.”

Then, the man placed the muzzle of his revolver against her temple, which caused her to scream and faint.

“All my past flitted before me like a moving picture show,” she said. “Then I screamed, ‘Dad, dad, help me.’ That’s the last thing I remember.”

Two neighbors heard her cries and frightened the man away. Police later arrested a man they said had jumped off a freight train at Hangman Creek and headed into the Cannon Hill neighborhood.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1980: The United States launched an unsuccessful attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, resulting in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen.