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

From our archives, 100 years ago

The Sun Employment Agency, 310 Front Ave., was blown to pieces in an apparently deliberate explosion that shattered more than a dozen plate glass windows throughout the downtown area and shook Spokane City Hall four blocks away. No one was injured despite the street being “thronged” with people when the building blew up at 7:50 p.m., sending the panic-stricken fleeing for cover as wood and sections of corrugated iron were flung through the air.

The owner speculated that striking workers may have dynamited the office because he’d been advertising for laborers to cross strike lines.

“The general supposition is that the dynamiting was done by someone with a grudge to feed on account of some grievance,” advised The Spokesman-Review.

From the cupid beat: The wedding of S.L. Smith, a “wealthy, retired farmer” from Oregon, to a widow 22 years his junior after a two-week courtship was the talk of the town. The 78-year-old farmer was in Spokane visiting relatives when he fell ill.

“Mrs. Berry … was employed to look after me, and she did the job so well that I concluded to engage her permanently for the part,” the groom explained.

Perhaps that’s what they mean by lovesick.