Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Dr. Edgar Paul Murdock was not going to let a little thing like a broken leg and a narrow escape from death keep him from piloting his flying machine.

The young Spokane physician was interviewed as he left Sacred Heart Hospital on crutches. He was on the way to Kellogg, where he planned to haul himself into the cockpit of a Curtiss biplane for an exhibition flight. He intended to wow the crowds in Kellogg by circling the high peaks around the town.

The last time he flew, he crashed near Spokane’s Union Park, broke his right leg and suffered other serious injuries. But he was undaunted.

“Afraid?” he said to reporters. “No. It makes no difference to me how many aviators are killed. Aviation is a hobby with me, and I suppose I’ll stay with it until I go with the rest of my fellow airmen into eternity.”

From the court beat: Della Olds, the young Spokane wife who shot her aged and abusive physician husband, filed suit to obtain half of his estate.

Under the terms of a proposed distribution of the estate, she would be entitled to only one-third of the estate. 

Della Olds was acquitted of murder after one of the most sensational trials in Spokane history.