Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Spokane hosted the Pacific Coast Logging Congress, and one of the subjects was: how to make logging camps more efficient, comfortable and sanitary.

The delegates admitted that the rough, crowded logging camps of the past were known for none of those traits.

However, one Bellingham man said his company had already improved its camps. His camps were “electric-lighted and heated by steam from the engine house.” They even had modern toilets and recreation rooms.

He said the bunkhouses are divided into “small units where the men have more privacy and more comfort, and may form congenial groups.”

From the divorce beat: A divorce hearing turned ugly after a wealthy Tyler farmer accused his wife of being “abusive.”

His wife retaliated by taking the stand and accusing him of once tying up one of their children by the heels – for something the child said at school – and hanging the child upside down in the barn for nearly a half-hour.

The incredulous judge said, “Do you mean to say that a child was hung up by the heels for half an hour and lived?” The wife said, yes, it was nearly that long. She also accused her husband of waging a personal war against sheepherders in the region. She said he once set fire to a sheepherder’s hut, which so badly burned the occupant he was “still a cripple.”