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

From our archives, 100 years ago

Clarence E. Eddy, the well-known “poet prospector” of Idaho, completed an unusual honeymoon trip with his wife. They walked 100 miles through Death Valley.

It took them nine days and nights. It turned out to be, well, no honeymoon. 

Eddy, who had walked Death Valley 20 times previously, said, “I cannot recall one that came as near finishing me as this.” The newspaper reported they suffered “grim perils which brought death near them several times.”

Eddy was well-known in this region as the discoverer of the Lost Packer Mine and three Loon Creek mines.

From the accident beat: A 66-year-old furnace operator at the Union Hotel in Spokane was shoveling rubbish into the basement furnace. He was not aware that someone had swept some gunpowder into the trash.

The powder exploded and flames shot out of the furnace door. His mustache and eyebrows were singed off. The man’s face was “literally cooked.”

He managed to call police, who took him immediately to the hospital. He survived, but his face was “marked for life.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1862: During the Civil War, the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimac) clashed for five hours to a draw at Hampton Roads, Va.