Jim Kershner’s This Day in History

From our archives, 100 years ago

The Spokane City Council was preparing an ordinance that would solve the jitney bus problem by requiring all operators to pay a city license fee of $75 and obtain a surety bond of $2,000.

A jitney bus was a large auto charging fares to carry passengers on a fixed route. So many local, private drivers were getting into the jitney bus business that they were threatening to undercut the established streetcar lines.

The streetcar companies protested that jitneys were getting a free ride because they didn’t have to pay any license fees. The ordinance was being prepared with the help of the streetcar companies.

This wasn’t just an issue in Spokane. Another story noted that there were 500 jitneys operating in Seattle and over 1,000 in Los Angeles, and they were depriving the streetcar companies of “vast revenue.”

The story said the jitney bus industry had begun with two cars in Phoenix only a year and a half earlier, and now was creating what a headline called “a new epoch in travel.”

From the pet beat: A Spokane man asked for $50 in damages from a man who accidentally ran over his dog.

The owner said his dog was worth $50 because it was a dog of many accomplishments. The owner claimed the dog had learned, among other things, “to say his prayers.”

The judge dismissed the claim.