Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The Spokane Park Board took a major step toward creating what it called “a downriver park” along the Spokane River on the western edge of the city. It acquired two more tracts of land to create one continuous 186-acre site. 

“The downriver park is considered one of the most picturesque recent additions of the park board,” The Spokesman-Review said. “It will follow the winding river from a point near Natatorium Park to a point south of the isolation hospital, more than two miles. The Fort George Wright reservation lies across the river from the new park, thereby assuring the preservation of the river banks from commercial or industrial use for all time.”

This acquisition paved the way for today’s Downriver Park and Downriver Golf Course. 

From the saloon beat: A lumberjack wearing a slouch hat aroused no curiosity in the Main Avenue saloons until he started “to sing a few lines from a late rag selection.”

At that point, officers making their rounds removed the lumberjack’s slouch hat – and “two long coils of black hair fell over her shoulders.” This lumberjack was a woman, May Craig, 35, in lumberjack disguise, who was saloon-hopping with a male companion.

Women were not allowed in saloons, so she and her male friend were booked into jail on disorderly conduct charges.