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

100 years ago in Spokane: Police search for 3 missing girls

Three Spokane girls were missing from their homes and police were searching throughout the region, The Spokesman-Review reported on March 4, 1917. (Spokesman-Review archives)

Three Spokane girls were missing from their homes and police were searching throughout the region.

Mildred Peters, 13, was the first to disappear. At first, police had information that she went to Deer Park to visit a chum, but that clue didn’t pan out. She apparently “had no boyfriends” and was of a “retiring disposition.”

The next day, Dorothy Jones, 18, and Ethel Wilson, 13, vanished from their homes with all of their clothing. The older girl had recently been employed at the telephone office, but had quit. The younger girl was a student at Jefferson School. Their parents could think of no reason why they should run away.

Police ran down several clues and brought in a young married man who had admitted taking the Jones girl on several joyrides. But he denied knowing anything about her whereabouts. He was released.

Police also ran down a tip that the two girls had been “taken to Wallace by some mining man.” But neither of the girls had been seen there.

From the restaurant beat: The city restaurant inspector took a reporter on an inspection tour, and had this to say: “The white proprietors usually ask why we do not clean up the Japanese places first, while the Japanese assert that we are always after them and leave the white men alone. The truth is, we have about as much trouble with one as the other.”