Jim Kershner’s This Day in History

From our archives, 100 years ago

Someone smuggled some knives in with dinner at the jail in Wallace. 

Prisoners M.J. Brown and James E. Taylor made them into saws, cut through their iron bars and made a daring daylight escape. 

They fled into the mountains with a score of deputies in pursuit. One deputy, C.H. Williams, spotted them at about midnight, three miles up the road to Mullan. Williams was alone, but he managed to halt them. He was placing the handcuffs on Brown when Taylor whirled and fired, ripping a hole through the deputy’s clothing. Then Brown knocked Williams in the head.

Williams, dazed, was able to draw his own gun and he fired at such close range that Brown’s clothing caught on fire. However, the two fugitives then raced into the night.

Williams was treated for minor wounds and deputies were on the trail of the fugitives – one of whom likely was slowed down by burns, if not by a gunshot wound.

From the murder beat : Undercover detectives attended the funeral of old soldier Charles Semmler, hoping that the man they suspected of killing him would show up in the guise of a mourner. However, the suspect failed to appear. The search continued. 

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1616: English poet William Shakespeare, 52, died on what has been regarded as the anniversary of his birth in 1564.