From our archives, 100 years ago today

One of the most contentious issues of the era – booze – was in the news.

First, the city of Medical Lake voted to go “dry” (booze-free) by a final tally of 89 to 80. The Spokesman-Review credited the city’s “mothers, wives and daughters” in winning the campaign against the saloons and “grog dealers.”

Groups of temperance women celebrated at the town hall by singing sentimental “household songs.”

Meanwhile, Davenport went “dry,” too, as a result of an earlier vote. The paper reported that the saloon owners planned to set up shop in other towns (Spokane, for one, was still emphatically “wet”). The sheriff warned Davenport’s drug store about the consequences of violating the new law.

Drug stores in “dry” towns often took to selling liquor under the guise of medicine.

From the divorce court: Speaking of booze, a Spokane wife claimed her husband fed her “drugged beer,” which caused her to become delirious and deranged. Then he had her committed to the asylum at Medical Lake.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1933: During Prohibition, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure to make wine and beer containing up to 3.2 percent alcohol legal. … 1941: The Grand Coulee hydroelectric dam in Washington state went into operation.