Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Work was almost finished on a stupendous bridge project: the 3,003-foot-long Spokane River-Hangman Creek bridge, being built by the Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Co.

The bridge, besides being well over a half-mile long, was 203 feet at its highest point and spanned the spacious flats near the confluence of Hangman Creek and the Spokane River. 

The bridge no longer exists, but you can still see its huge foundation near the southern end of Summit Boulevard, along the Centennial Trail, not far from the north end of the Sandifur Bridge.

From the gender beat: The Spokesman-Review ran a syndicated column by Jesse F. Williams, head instructor of the physical department of Columbia University, which patiently explained why girls need to be taught sportsmanship.

“The general belief that girls are not sportsmanlike, that they are poor losers, that they do not always play the game, is not entirely true,” wrote the professor. Yet because girls “have no natural gang spirit” – apparently meaning team spirit – they needed to be taught that “there is responsibility in play as well as in work.”

The professor said that “a girl who becomes a sportsman need lose none of her desirable feminine qualities, but she may and does lose many that are not desirable.”