Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Halloween was relatively tame in Spokane, mainly because heavy rain kept many of the usual miscreants indoors.

However, “tame” by 1914 standards was not all that tame.

One girl, 12, was endangered when a group of boys rolled an oil tank off a steep bank on Riverside Avenue at Cedar Street.

“Thumping loudly as it bounded from place to place on the steep incline, it gave warning to the child, but not until it was almost upon her could she see it,” said The Spokesman-Review. “She bounded aside as it crashed into Peaceful Valley.”

Another oil tank was rolled down Hamilton Street, where it stopped on the streetcar tracks.

Horses were turned loose from a northside stable and the horses “went roaming over the North Hill.” Pranksters appropriated someone’s buggy “and left it in the center of the street at Wall Street and Queen Avenue.”

Outhouses were overturned in many parts of the city. The most random prank was “the removal of 40 feet of fence” from one man’s yard.

Nobody was arrested, which was unusual on Halloween. However, police had to help some young trick-or-treaters find their way home after they wandered so far from home that they became lost.