100 years ago in Spokane: ‘Kings’ meet in Spokane, attended by businessmen’s court

From our archive, 100 years ago

Amidst considerable pomp and splendor, King Boreas Rex IX arrived in Spokane to pay his respects to King Pip IX.

Neither of these lofty personages were real kings. They were pretend kings dreamed up for entertainment purposes – sort of like prom kings.

King Boreas Rex was the titular head of the Saint Paul Outdoor Winter Sports Carnival in Minnesota. King Pip IX was the monarch of the National Apple Show in Spokane.

People in 1916 were clearly infatuated by all things medieval, which is why they went all out with this royal charade.

When King Boreas Rex arrived at the Spokane train station, he was met by King Pip and about 40 businessmen, all dressed up in courtly dress.

The businessmen wore “carnival uniforms of colored mackinaws with stocking caps and knee trousers, some wearing long coats of the same gay colored material in white, with stripes of red and green.”

They posed solemnly for a front page photo, looking a bit like the denizens of Munchkin Land, only taller.

From the juvenile beat: The young inmates of the county juvenile detention rooms were on the verge of having a whiskey party when the matron swept in and grabbed a pint bottle from one of the boys.

The boy had been employed the day before in moving some of the evidence in the Spokane Hotel liquor trial. He said he found the whiskey in one of the boxes he was moving.

He and some other boys had managed to raise a window, “communicating with the girls’s side,” and were passing the bottle over when they were caught.