Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The mysterious disappearance of Spokane mining executive M.H. Hare still was not quite solved.

Hare’s family had been vastly relieved a month earlier when they received a letter from him, saying he was in California and being treated by doctors for a nervous “attack.” 

In the letter, Hare told his wife that he planned “to send for her shortly,” but she had received no word from him since.

Based on that letter, his brother headed to California to find him. However, the letter did not give a precise location – it was postmarked Los Angeles – and didn’t name any particular doctors or hospital. For weeks, the brother searched in all of the likely places in Los Angeles and vicinity but failed to find him.

Now, Hare’s brother had “gone east, to renew his vigils in that part of the country.”

From the robbery beat: Spokane police were in hot pursuit of George M. Martin, a real estate solicitor, who they suspected of being the armed man who robbed the Spokane State Bank a few days earlier.

Martin had been sought by police even before the robbery for passing bad checks. Police said Martin knew they were looking for him and he came up with an ill-advised plan to get enough money to flee his pursuers. He signed the note that he gave the bank teller, “A Desperate Man.”