Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Two Spokane brothers, ages 21 and 24, were thwarted in their attempt to make the first wintertime ascent of Mount Carlton, known today as Mount Spokane.

They strapped on snowshoes, grabbed their guns and backpacks, and headed up the snow-covered mountain.

“Many times, in clambering over fallen trees, the slipping of their snowshoes would send them crashing through the branches and headlong into snowdrifts,” reported The Spokesman-Review.

They finally had to turn back, 1,000 feet or so below the summit, but they vowed to try it again next winter. Their names were Silas and Frank Cook, the sons of Francis H. Cook, the man who would later help preserve Mount Spokane as a state park.

From the election beat: The Spokane city clerk recorded a historic event: The first time in the history of Spokane “a Chinaman,” as the paper called him, was registered to vote.

Actually, Lee Tung Yin was an American, which is why he qualified. He was born in Portland 35 years earlier.

The paper added that Yin had been educated at a mission school in Portland and “writes splendid English.”

That didn’t stop the reporter from quoting Yin in crude pidgin dialect.