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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Miss A. Johnson, 18, a teacher at a country school near Pomeroy, Washington, desperately wanted to get to Spokane for Christmas.

So she took a desperate chance. After school was adjourned on Christmas Eve, she arrived at the Snake River, but there was no boat to ferry her across. She watched as two men lit “newspaper torches” and stepped gingerly across the partially frozen river. In the middle, they had to jump from ice floe to ice floe, but they succeeded in getting across.

Miss Johnson declared that if they could do it, so could she. So she lit a wrapping-paper torch and started across. At one point, one of the ice floes carried her downriver, to the horror of the two men watching from the far shore. Yet she finally managed to make it to the other side.

The two men then escorted her to a railroad way station, where she flagged down a train bound for Spokane.

When she arrived at the Davenport Hotel, to spend Christmas with some of her teacher friends, the story of her harrowing trip spread among the hotel guests.

“She was the heroine of the hostelry” for the rest of her visit.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1799: Former President George Washington was eulogized by Col. Henry Lee as “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”