100 years ago: Fugitive dodges draft; then dodges again

Carl Brown clearly did not want to be drafted.

He was at large somewhere in the Cascade Range, after escaping from authorities for a second time.

Brown, who also went by the name of Oak Sanders, was one of the first men to be arrested in Spokane for failure to register for the draft. He was in a Spokane jail for two months, and then apparently was released and went to work on a hay camp near Dayton.

While at the camp, he heard that the government was still “interested” in his case. He boarded a wagon with the “announced purpose” of going to fill out his draft questionnaire.

However, on the way, a deputy sheriff approached him on a lonely part of the road. Brown jumped off the wagon and fled into the brush, taking his bedroll with him.

The deputy anticipated where he would emerge, 25 miles distant. He waited there until Brown emerged, “weary and footsore,” four hours later. The deputy took him into custody.

Brown was taken to a “mobilization camp” in Ellensburg, and then was put on a train to Camp Lewis near Tacoma. But he jumped from the train en route, and was once again a fugitive.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

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