Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Hundreds of shoppers thronged downtown Spokane on the busiest day of the year. A Spokesman-Review reporter attempted to capture it in strained prose:

“The Christmas spirit was noticeable. You just couldn’t define it, but you knew it was there. You could see it in the smiling faces, even of the babies. For there were plenty of babies in evidence. They seemed to have the Christmas spirit, too, for there were few that cried.”

The reporter noted that one restaurant employee slipped from a ladder and bumped his head putting up a holly wreath in the window. The man, she said, was the only person who did not seem to have the Christmas spirit – “it was lost on him.”

However, there seemed to be one other person lacking in Christmas generosity of spirit.

“Served him right,” sniffed a passing woman. “He ought to have decorated his window before. Now is a pretty time to be putting up Christmas decorations.”

From the saloon beat: The owner of the Stockholm Bar, at Main Avenue and Wall Street, landed in hot water for being too generous. He gave away specially decorated pint bottles of whisky to all customers and visitors.

One visitor was a 17-year-old who came in to get his paycheck cashed. An officer arrested the owner for supplying liquor to minors.