Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 75 years ago

For a few days, we’ll switch our attention away from the Spokane of 100 years ago to the Spokane of 75 years ago.

In 1938, the city was preparing for the arrival of 16 Army Air Corps planes from Hamilton Field in California. The 16 bombers were planning to spend nearly two weeks operating out of Felts Field on bombing maneuvers.

The Spokesman-Review wrote a profile of one of the squadron’s advance men, Maj. C.P. Talbot, who had been training in Alabama during World War I (although it was not called by that name yet) when something went wrong with his Curtis “Jenny.”

He still didn’t know what happened. All he knew was that he woke up in the hospital. 

He was rescued, he later learned, from someone’s backyard.

From the parks beat: A grand “water pageant” was being planned at the Comstock Park pool. Pool employees constructed a giant sea serpent named Oscar, “first cousin of the Loch Ness monster.” They planned to stage an event in which pool attendant Frances Olson would be “tossed from a boat … to appease the monster.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1492: Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, on a voyage that took him to the present-day Americas.