100 years ago in Spokane: Last call for drinkers’ streetcar

From our archives,

100 years ago

A headline in the Spokane Daily Chronicle announced an “epochal event” in Spokane: the passing of the “Owl” streetcar.

This was the late-night streetcar that ran after midnight and transported revelers home from downtown. The streetcar companies said ridership had recently been slipping and the Owl car was no longer a real necessity. The Owl cars would no longer run after the turn of the year.

This was probably due to two significant cultural changes. The first was the steady and unrelenting increase in auto use, which was beginning to hurt all streetcar ridership numbers. The second was the coming of statewide prohibition, which would take effect in less than a week.

Many of the Owl riders came from saloons and bars. Streetcar officials said there was no need for Owl cars for people out at theaters and motion picture shows, since most of those closed around 11 p.m.

From the prohibition beat: Saloons sold more than just booze. Many sold lunches for a nickel. So a new five-cent soup kitchen was scheduled to open in downtown Spokane to fill the new demand for low-priced lunch establishments.

An “expert soup maker” from the East Coast had been hired to make five or six different soups a day. For the opening week, the Salvation Army was giving away 1,000 free soup tickets.