100 years ago in Spokane: Fear of the jinx was suspected when Teddy, Gonzaga’s bulldog athletics mascot, disappeared

Teddy Gonzaga, the bulldog mascot of Gonzaga University’s athletic teams, disappeared following a baseball loss to the University of Montana.

“Mystery is attached to the disappearance,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported.

Was the dog spirited away by Montana students?

Not likely. It was more likely that Gonzaga students were the culprits, because they had come to believe the dog was a jinx.

Teddy had been mascot for over a year, and “bad luck on the score sheets” had plagued the varsity teams since, the students said.

Faculty lamented the dog’s disappearance. The students, tellingly, did not seem to lament it at all.

The students were “firmly convinced” that Gonzaga would have more success “if Teddy’s disappearance was permanent and a new mascot is added.”

From the archaeology file: Dr. James Drake, the city’s school physician, was riding on a road along the Spokane River, just downstream from the Little Spokane River, when he saw a crew doing excavation work. Drake saw a human bone protruding from the dirt.

When he investigated, he found a complete skeleton.

The skull had been crushed in. He took the skeleton to experts at Whitworth College, who said the bones were 800 years old. Further excavation revealed another skull.

Also on this day

(From the Associated Press)

1949: The Soviet Union lifted the Berlin Blockade, which the Western powers had succeeded in circumventing with their Berlin Airlift.