Spokane

Postcards.

From 1976: More than 50 South Hill residents reported hearing a mysterious character crying for “Help!” from somewhere up in the trees.

Winter has finally arrived. No more sneaking out into the garden to do one more project because the ground is still thawed. The problem is that with all our garden projects buried, what’s a gardener to do for the next few weeks?

From 1976: Fairchild Air Force Base security personnel – including a police canine – searched nearly 300 cars entering and leaving the base.

The Spokane City Council is hesitating to accept $1 million in federal funds to hire eight new police officers amid concerns it could force compliance with federal immigration detention efforts and presidential executive orders, despite reassurances from local police officials.

From 1976: Was the local stagehands union causing entertainment acts to skip Spokane?

It’s been a little over a year since Michael Baumgartner was elected as Eastern Washington’s congressman from among the most crowded field in decades, replacing former Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who held the seat for 20 years before announcing her retirement.

Rich Landers has the distinction of being the only Bloomsday Perennial who was paid to participate in the first race in 1977. He ran that year wearing ’70s-style, knee-high tube socks, carrying a notebook and pen and interviewing other runners as he made his way through the course as a Spokesman-Review reporter.

This first-person account of running the first Bloomsday on May 1, 1977, appeared in The Spokesman-Review on May 3, 1977.

From 1976: Ricky Anthony Young, 24, was sentenced to a life term for the mail-bomb murder of Judge James. J. Lawless in Pasco.

From 1976: Developer James S. Black proposed a major shopping center in the Spokane Valley at Broadway and Sullivan Road but the Spokane County Planning Commission put the brakes on it.

Spurred by the deadly shooting of a mother of three in Minneapolis, several hundred people braved the chilly weather and lined Division Street along B.A. Clark Park holding signs that called for the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and condemned President Donald Trump’s policies.

Bajun Mavalwalla II, one of the nine people arrested on charges of criminal conspiracy following the June 11 anti-ICE protest in Spokane and one of four who have not entered a guilty plea, made his first public statement on Saturday at the congressional campaign launch party of his father, also named Bajun Mavalwalla.

From 1976: Some of the people who donated to the Salvation Army’s drop boxes were less than charitable.

After Renee Good was shot and killed Wednesday morning in Minneapolis by a federal immigration enforcement agent, some Spokane residents joined the national outcry and took to the streets in protest.

Despite widespread concerns that ballots sent through the mail would not be postmarked in time for the 2025 election, fewer late ballots in Spokane County were rejected than in prior years.

From 1976: A new breed of rustlers were prowling the backwoods of North Idaho: Cedar rustlers.

Glen MacPhee is not only proud that he has completed all 49 Bloomsday races, but he’s proud that two of the cross country runners he recruited to run in the first race are themselves Bloomsday Perennials.