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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

The front page headline doesn’t seem that earthshaking: “N.P. Grade Separation Work Awarded; To Begin at Once.”

But this was a piece of news that would affect everyone in Spokane. “Grade separation” meant the trains finally would be elevated above street level (or, in some cases, moved below). It meant that people would no longer have to wait in downtown traffic jams waiting for the Northern Pacific’s many trains to chug through.

Thousands of Spokane laborers would be put to work building bridges, abutments and overpasses. The work would continue through 1915. A century later, Spokane’s downtown motorists still benefit.

From the outdoors beat: An editorial page writer recounted an auto trip up wild Mt. Spokane.

“Our automobile, the water boiling furiously from the long climb in ‘low,’ slipped two wheels over the rain-softened embankment,” said the writer. “Its five passengers got out to scan the far-sweeping scenery and devise a means of putting the overhanging wheels again on firm roadway. A gunshot broke the brooding silence, and presently a lone hunter, hesitating between his longing to engage in conversation and a fear that pestiferous game wardens might be meddling around the mountain, came over a lateral trail and obligingly imparted information. ‘How’s hunting?’ opened the conversation. ‘There’s a good many birds,’ he answered, ‘but this is a state game preserve and we don’t dare shoot them.’ As he spoke, he drew his coat closer about him in a laudable, but futile, endeavor to conceal the pendant head and neck of a blue grouse.”