100 years ago in Spokane: Aspiring aviators, rhinoplasty and a charlatan seer

Spokane recruits were flocking to one of the most exciting and dangerous branches of wartime military service: “the aviation section.”

Six of the nine young men enlisting that day at Spokane’s Army Recruiting Station chose the aviation section.

The other three chose the artillery corps, the cavalry and the engineer’s corps.

Spokane was a recruitment center for a huge region. That day’s recruits came from Dillon, Libby, Dove Tail and Kalispell, all in Montana, and Anchor, Wyoming.

From the medical beat: Miss Ynez Rochford of Colville was the recipient of what seemed to be a medical miracle: a new nose.

The point of Miss Rochford’s nose had been cut off when a windshield came loose during an auto accident.

Her family contacted Dr. James N. Neff, a surgeon formerly in Spokane and now practicing in Chicago. Miss Rochford went to Chicago and underwent a series of operations, involving grafts of “both skin and flesh” from her arms.

The result? The surgery removed all traces of the accident and her new nose showed only a scar.

“Only by looking closely may a scar be detected now,” said her father, who added that in a year, the scar would not even be visible.

From the police beat: The Coeur d’Alene police chief arrived in Yakima and immediately declared that E.C. Wigley, a traveling salesman arrested there, was not actually Prof. Wise, a clairvoyant wanted for fleecing several Coeur d’Alene women.

The police chief said that Wigley was at least 10 years too young to be Prof. Wise, and that other “important characteristics” were dissimilar.