100 years ago in Spokane: War death announced two weeks after armistice

Word arrived, two weeks after the armistice, that Lt. Royal Argall, 23, son of Spokane city commissioner J.C. Argall, had died in France on or about October 20, 1918.

The news arrived in the form of a letter from an officer who served with Argall. Argall was a former student at South Central High School, which was later rebuilt as Lewis and Clark High School.

South Central/Lewis and Clark had taken a heavy toll in the European war. A related story in the Spokane Daily Chronicle noted that the high school had lost at least 14 boys in the war – and that did not count Argall.

The story also noted that Lewis and Clark had lost two students to the Spanish flu so far.

From the flu beat: Leo Wenzloff was serving a 90-day sentence on bootlegging charges – but he was released early, in recognition of his service as a jail “flu nurse.”

Wenzloff acted as head nurse to the flu patients in the county jail and did “excellent work.” The prosecuting attorney recommended that he be released after serving only half of his sentence.