Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

John Hammond, a young machinist’s helper in the Green Hill Cleveland Mining Co. mill in Wallace, was snatched up by the whirling steel of a spinning mill shaft.

The machinery grabbed his clothing and revolved him in a “lightning motion” around the shaft. 

Then he was “released entirely naked with the exception of his boots,” and thrown off the shaft.

Yet his trials were not over. Hammond was thrown onto an upright steel rod “which protruded above a bolt cutter.” Fortunately, someone had covered the end of the rod with a “T” handle, which caused the rod to spring downward, tossing the naked Hammond onto the floor, feet first.

He emerged “practically without a scratch and little the worse for the wear.”

From the crime beat: Spokane police released their 1912 arrest statistics, including arrests by ethnicity.

Here’s the toll, listed in the nomenclature of the day: Native born whites, 260; Irishmen, 30; Swedes, 36; Canadians, 16; Norwegians, 14; Englishmen, 13; Chinamen, 13; Germans, 11; Scotchmen, 10; Japanese, 10; Greeks, eight; Negroes, seven; Italians, five; Austrians, four; and Indians, four.