Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Spokane’s youthful joy riders – three boys and three girls, ages 17 to 19 – were still on the loose somewhere in the middle of the state. They took off several days earlier in an auto bound for Tacoma without telling their parents, who were in a “highly nervous state.”

Reports from Wenatchee said they ate dinner there, stayed in a rooming house and took off for Ellensburg the next morning on their way over the Cascades.

From the accident beat: Elevators were notoriously unsafe in 1914, and an incident at the Empire State Building in downtown Spokane showed exactly why. A 4-year-old was riding with his mother. He fell as the elevator started up and his head protruded over the edge and was caught by the bottom edge of the third floor. He died instantly.

There was no door on the elevator cage. This was the second child killed in that elevator in the space of a few years.

From the labor beat: Charges and countercharges continued to fly in Butte after days of violent rioting. One group of “citizen vigilantes” formed with the intent of deposing Butte’s mayor, on the charges that he “permitted” the riot.

Meanwhile, the president of the Western Federation of Miners was being guarded by sheriff’s officers in Helena. Police feared assassins had followed him when he fled from Butte to Helena.

The union president blamed all of the troubles on the “wrecking crew of the Industrial Workers of the World” – the Wobblies.