Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

A party of 21 boys, age 12 to 16, returned to the Spokane YMCA after a four-day, 80-mile hike.

The boys each carried packs of 15 to 20 pounds, containing a blanket, cooking utensils and provisions. They left the YMCA and hiked 26 miles the first day to the Long Lake camp of the Washington Water Power Co. They were supposed to stop after 20 miles, but decided to push on because of threatening weather.

They were allowed the use of the schoolhouse to bunk out of the rain. Camp cooks “set up a fine supper,” which was cooked over a campfire in a nearby gulch. The cooks made breakfast over the campfire the next morning.

They hiked downstream to the Little Falls plant, where they made camp the second night. Then they returned, “cutting several miles off the return trip by following the power line.”

When they finally returned to the YMCA building, they all took “a plunge in the big pool.”

They all “claimed they were as fresh as when they started out, except for a few foot blisters.”

Also on this date

1861: The Virginia State Convention voted to secede from the Union.

1937: Daffy Duck made his debut in the Warner Bros. animated cartoon “Porky’s Duck Hunt,” directed by Tex Avery.