Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Miss Lucia Edison, a schoolteacher in the Horse Heaven Hills country near Benton City, left her home on foot to visit a neighbor several miles away.

Then she was overtaken by a raging blizzard, with temperatures below zero. She lost her way and “walked about dazed” for many hours. Her feet and legs got so cold, she “filled her stockings with sagebrush” as a kind of insulation.

She was found at 3 a.m. the next day by a rancher. Her feet were severely frostbitten and she was suffering from serious symptoms of exposure. Doctors were not certain that she would recover.

From the crime beat: A 29-year-old itinerant hod carrier named John Richards was shot in the leg in the act of stealing chickens from an elderly Spokane woman. The old woman shouted for help after she saw two men in her chicken house stuffing poultry into a bag. A neighbor opened fire and shot Richards in the leg. He had 100 pounds of dead chickens in the bag.

Richards said he had just arrived from Sandpoint and was “stealing because he had to.” However, Spokane police said he had just finished serving time on the chain gang for vagrancy.

Also on this date

From the Associated Press

1896: Utah became the 45th state.