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

From our archives, 100 years ago

Emma Esther, a widow, became the first woman to sit on a criminal jury in Spokane County – and she voted to convict another woman of attempted robbery.

She said the 11 men on the jury asked her opinion during deliberations, and “being a woman, of course, I had to give tongue to my thoughts.”

Apparently, the defendant was suspected of being a prostitute as well as a robber. Esther said she voted for conviction because she believed that “her class should be kept off the streets.” However, Esther said she was a believer in a “wide-open town” and a restricted district (a designated area for prostitution). 

And even though women’s suffrage is what allowed Esther to serve on a jury, she said she had never been an “ardent suffragist.” She said she believed that the suffragists were “controlled” by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union – an organization she clearly did not approve of.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1862: Nashville, Tenn., occupied by federal forces during the Civil War, was the first Confederate capital to fall to the Union. … 1919: Oregon became the first state to tax gasoline, at one cent per gallon. … 1964: Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) became world heavyweight boxing champion by defeating Sonny Liston in Miami Beach.