Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

A Spokane couple traveled to Coeur d’Alene to get married.

Why? For the socialist cause.

 Olf Lund, 70, and Harriet Lydia Barber, 40, were both socialists “and it was their desire to be united in marriage by a socialist mayor.”

So they enlisted John T. Wood, of Coeur d’Alene, to perform the wedding ceremony, his first since being elected mayor. 

Mayor Wood did not remain a socialist, however. In 1950, at age 72, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives – as a Republican.

From the highway beat: A meeting was held in Wenatchee to enlist support for a popular idea: a highway over the Cascades using the “old switchbacks of the Great Northern” railroad. This idea would eventually lead to the development of U.S. Highway 2 over Stevens Pass.

Also on this date

1609: English sea explorer Henry Hudson and his ship, the Half Moon, reached present-day Delaware Bay…. 1862: The Second Battle of Bull Run (also known as Second Manassas) began in Prince William County, Va., during the Civil War (the result was a Confederate victory). … 1963: More than 200,000 people listened as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.