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

100 years ago today: Stevens County draft dodger caught after accident required medical care

From the Nov. 25, 1917 edition of The Spokesman-Review (The Spokesman-Review archives)

Emil Edward Schmeller, 23, went to extremes to avoid the draft.

Schmeller was drafted in Stevens County – but then disappeared for three months.

The mystery of his whereabouts was solved when a Chewelah doctor brought him to Spokane to be treated for severe hip and leg injuries.

It turned out that Schmeller had retreated to a “lonely cabin seven miles northeast of Chewelah.” There he hid out, with help from his father, who brought him food.

Then one day he fell out of a tree “in an attempt to swing across a narrow canyon near his cabin.” He was injured so badly his father was forced to take the doctor to him.

After he arrived in Spokane and was treated, he was arrested as a deserter and turned over to Fort George Wright authorities.

From the transport beat: By 1917, the auto’s triumph over the horse was nearly complete.

In fact, a visiting San Francisco auto dealer said, “There ought to be a city ordinance barring horses from the streets of Spokane.”

He said making Spokane horse-less would relieve downtown congestion, and make it a “cleaner, healthier city.”

He said the horse has gone from being one of the most valuable animals in existence, to being “one of our most serious liabilities.” For one thing, horses required constant care.

“Men work more for horses than horses work for men,” he said.