Jim Kershner’s This day in history » On the Web: spokesman.com/topics/local-history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Spokane was positively giddy over the National Apple Show, which was nearing the end of its weeklong run.

Attendance at this trade show/convention/agricultural exhibit topped 8,000 per day.

The fun reached a zenith during an event called the Initiation Into the Mystic Order of Enakops (Spokane spelled backwards). This tongue-in-cheek fraternal lodge initiated 13 new members, all mayors of Inland Northwest towns, including Pullman, Oroville and Spangle.

“The initiation was great fun for the crowd, which laughed loudly when the victim sprang from the electric chair,” said the story about the event.

And that wasn’t the only laugh. Each mayor was then seated on a “throne,” a collapsing chair which launched them off the platform and down a slide.

A burlesque entertainment followed, presided over by “King Pip” and his court. One crowd-pleasing number featured Ed Knight doing an impersonation of President William Howard Taft singing “I’ll Be Johnny on the Spot in 1912.”

The story doesn’t specify whether the song got bigger laughs than the electric chair.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1961: Enos the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft.