100 years ago in Spokane: Whitworth’s campus takes shape

From our archives, 100 years ago

The Spokesman-Review ran a pictorial feature extolling the beauty of the new campus of Whitworth College in north Spokane.

It noted that Aubrey L. White, Spokane’s famous parks leader, had “charted out the streets of college homes and avenues” so that every one had a “view of rare beauty.”

“Although few of the avenues and streets are now graded … it does not take a lot of imagining to foresee a campus of exquisite loveliness when Whitworth reaches its goal of White’s vision.”

Many parts of the campus already had taken shape.

“Whitworth’s builders thought it worthwhile to give their students a theater, even in the first building,” the paper said.

And although “Whitworth may not have a football team able to keep pace” with other local college teams, it already “had an athletic field that, excepting only the element of size, is the equal of any in the Northwest.”

The college also had a fine 6,000-volume library.

“As (White) shook the gymnasium out of the vest pockets of his friends, so he prestidigitated, as it were, a library right out from under their handkerchiefs,” the paper said.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1865: Confederate President Jefferson Davis signed a measure allowing black slaves to enlist in the Confederate States Army with the promise they would be set free.