Summer of 1906

“Spokane in those days was a rollicking boom town that had tripled in population in less than a decade to 100,000 people. Silver miners, lumberjacks, apple and wheat farmers, prostitutes and gamblers mingled and quarreled in the streets — along with every kind of businessman and real estate speculator in between. Yet there was also something about Spokane that would inspire resident Mrs. John Bruce Dodd to launch the movement that would create Father’s Day: a yearning for permanence and hope for improvement,a sense that out of these rough streets a better, more settled life was coming.” — from Arthur Herman’s “Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II” (2012, Random House)

This was all about setting the stage for the young Henry J. Kaiser moving to Spokane.