Jim Kershner’s This day in history » On the Web: spokesman.com/topics/local-history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The family of Anna Weber was forced to sell off their little dairy operation below Summit Avenue on the Spokane River.

Why? Because they were obliged to walk, every day, past the spot where Anna, 22, was brutally murdered.

Also, without Anna’s wages as a housemaid, they could no longer afford to run the business. Apparently she and her sisters had been contributing to the upkeep of the place, which the family had purchased just three months earlier. The family put it up for sale right after the murder, and had just concluded the sale. They were moving to a small house near St. Luke’s Hospital, where Anna’s father was a janitor. Meanwhile, police were “just as baffled as ever” by the murder.

“While every plausible theory that has been offered has been run down, the mystery has not been solved and no arrests even were made,” said the paper.

Meanwhile, police were optimistic that the murderer of Chauncey R. Simmons, killed in a house burglary, might soon be apprehended. They believed he was part of a burglary gang that went on to do similar burglaries in Seattle, Portland and Tacoma. Police in those cities were on their trail.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1783: George Washington resigned as commander in chief of the Continental Army and retired to Mount Vernon, Va.