Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The Spokane Daily Chronicle ran a photo of the steamboat Ione, the picturesque vessel that took Spokane residents on scenic excursions on the Pend Oreille River.

The trip began every Sunday at 9 a.m. from a Spokane train depot. The train took people to Newport, where they boarded the steamer and took a beautiful four-hour cruise down the river to the town of Ione. There passengers disembarked and boarded a special train, which backed its way down scenic Box Canyon for another splendid view. After a 15-minute stay, the journey was reversed.

From the international beat: A visiting Japanese baseball team from Waseda University defeated Spokane’s leading City League team, demonstrating a “wonderful knowledge of the fine points of the game.” Among other things, they “worked the squeeze in perfect style.”

The Japanese players were also treated to a Japanese banquet of “raw fish, whale meat” and other delicacies made by the chief cook of the Japanese restaurant “back of the Coeur d’Alene Hotel.” This was in Spokane’s Japanese Alley, a place “almost unviewed by Western eyes.”

By the way, in 1911, they did not use the word “Japanese.” They used the three-letter version.