Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Spokane’s Boy Scouts reported that their first Thanksgiving Field Day was a big success.

Hundreds of Boy Scouts converged on a field north of town and engaged in contests such as hand-wrestling, “Indian wrestling,” and “trailing.”

There was also a Morse code contest, in which one scout “wig-wagged” the word “Thanksgiving” in 50 seconds.

From the mission beat: The Union Rescue Mission gave a free Thanksgiving chicken dinner to 300 of Spokane’s “penniless and homeless” men. The paper described them as mostly “out of work, unkempt and unshaven.”

From the “trouble” beat: There was trouble in River City, with a capital T, and that rhymed with P and that stood for pool.

Spokane’s mayor vowed that he would shut down Spokane’s suburban pool rooms. A juvenile authority described them as “a menace to the youth of the city.”

He said pool rooms “furnish all-night gathering places and a place for the young to play cards, shake dice and learn to smoke.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1940: The cartoon character Woody Woodpecker made his debut … 1963: The body of President John F. Kennedy was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.