Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

A mysterious party of diggers alarmed residents of West Buckeye Avenue as they feverishly dug a large pit on a vacant lot.

A police officer arrived to investigate, but the woman and two men were reluctant to talk to him. 

Finally, they told him an old sheepherder had told one of them on his deathbed that he had buried a large amount of gold. He gave cryptic clues to finding it. 

It took them eight years to unravel the clues, but they now believed they had narrowed the site to this vacant lot. They received permission from the owners to dig.

So far, there was no trace of a fortune in gold, yet the three said they would work night and day and “upturn every foot within the lot.” They didn’t say where they were from, but said they had journeyed from afar.

From the politics beat: The paper was covering the competition for the open seat on the Spokane City Commission as if it were a horse race.

“For a day or two, Albert Held seemed to be in the lead, but yesterday Alonzo Murphey appeared strong and he was considered a neck-and-neck competitor of Albert Held.” 

The commission also had to choose a new mayor, but one of the four sitting commissioners, C.M. Fassett, seemed to have the inside track on that job.