100 years ago in Spokane: Log ride down Spokane River results in drowning

From our archives, 100 years ago

A Spokane unit of the Washington National Guard arrived at Calexico, California, to guard the border with Mexico.

“We are camped only about 1,000 yards north of the line, and we were amused to observe the excitement caused in the Mexican camp just to the south by the arrival of our great, war-strength regiment the other day,” wrote an officer from Spokane. “They have a tall lookout mast upon which they keep a sentinel all the time. As our companies marched into the campsite and began to throw up their city of canvas, there was much scrambling up and down the lookout mast across the way, and it is rumored that the entire Mexican garrison that night retired to the hills, 10 miles to the south, leaving only an outpost behind. Since then, finding that we displayed no immediate hostile intent, they have returned, and this morning we heard their bugles and drums sounding as they took their morning drills.”

From the drowning beat: Several young men were riding a log down the Spokane River, upstream from the falls.

“As the log and its passengers neared an eddy known as the Hillyard boys’ swimming pool,” George J. Cloud, 18, decided to jump off and swim to shore. Yet he had only gone a few yards when he cried for help.

His brother, a good swimmer, jumped in and towed him partway to shore, to a place where they both started wading. However, George, for some reason, suddenly threw up his hands and disappeared. His brother dove repeatedly in an attempt to find him, to no avail.