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

100 years ago in Spokane: Police nab suspects in safecracking spree

From our archives, 100 years ago

Two notorious yeggs (safecrackers) were arrested after they were observed hanging around the North Monroe branch post office.

An alert policeman became suspicious and apprehended the men. One of them carried a bottle of liquid, believed to be nitroglycerin and other materials used to blow safes. When the two prisoners arrived back at the police headquarters, a sergeant recognized one of them as an ex-con named John Hendricks, who had been jailed several times for blowing safes in Oregon and Washington and for shooting police officers who tried to stop him.

He and the other man, identified as J. Bailey, were believed to have been responsible for a safe-blowing spree in Montana. Items from several of the Montana safes were found on the men. The two were also suspected of being the men who had blown more than a dozen post office safes in towns around Spokane.

They were being turned over to federal postal authorities.

From the strike beat: More than 25 former law officers from Spokane were on the way to Seattle and Tacoma to “keep order” during a bitter longshoremen’s strike.

They were hired by the Milwaukee Road to “assist in guarding” the railroad’s property on the docks.

The contingent included former beat cops, deputy sheriffs, federal marshals and private security guards.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1994: A bomb hidden in a van destroyed a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85. … Tutsi rebels declared an end to Rwanda’s 14-week-old civil war.