A Look Back: 50 Years After Jfk's Death

• » Read accounts from readers, shared by columnist Paul Turner.
• » Find out about how a local man's study rebuts the single-shooter finding -- Shawn Vestal writes about what Robert Forman learned.
• » A Spokane man served as usher in JFK's funeral. Staff writer Kip Hill talked to his son.

Read these stories and more.

News of the fatal shooting of President John F. Kennedy struck Spokane like a bomb today. Word of the tragedy spread like wildfire by word of mouth through downtown offices and stores and by telephone around the city and its outskirts.

John F. Kennedy was in a down-to-the-wire battle with Richard M. Nixon for the presidency in 1960. Sen. Kennedy made four trips to Spokane that year, the city being seen as a key battleground for the electoral votes of Washington. He appeared at a rally at the Lincoln Monument in downtown, at a special meeting at Gonzaga, at the annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in February, and, made a final campaign swing through the city on November 6, two days before the election. The election took place on November 8. Kennedy eked out victory by the narrowest of margins and took the oath of office as the nation’s 35th President in January of 1961.