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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Spokane’s sanitation inspector, with help from the humane officer, carted off 40 cats in gunny sacks from the home of Clara Churchill, a widow.

The inspector admitted he didn’t get nearly all of them.

“Talk about your cats – I never saw such a mess of them in all my life,” the inspector said. “There were big cats and little cats, black cats and white, tame cats and fighting tom cats, fat cats and lean cats.”

Rounding up the cats was a caterwauling adventure.

“Two cats jumped through a screen window and escaped, while another leapt into the firebox of Mrs. Churchill’s stove,” the paper said.

“One of the cats mounted to the kitchen table and broke three or four dishes and another climbed the board wall and had to be dislodged with a broom. Six or eight climbed trees. More of them got on the roof of the house and others scattered over the fence.”

Churchill seemed “loath to part with her old friends.” Yet she apparently did recognize a bright side. She had been spending much of her earnings for meat.

The captured cats were “to be chloroformed.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1775: The Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington head of the Continental Army.