Jim Kershner’s This Day in History

From our archives, 100 years ago

The Spokane Crude Oil Co. had taken leases on 1,700 acres and was drilling for oil on Wild Rose Prairie and at another site near Colbert, about 20 miles north of Spokane. 

The owners of the company said “we have encountered every indication of oil” – although only indications, so far. 

They had drilled about 100 feet down and still had about 800 more feet to go before they struck their hoped-for gusher.

From the opium beat: James G. Bell, who was sitting in a Spokane jail cell awaiting federal charges of opium smuggling, apparently had some previous experience in that profession.

Federal authorities determined that Bell was actually James G. Ralston, who served a sentence in Portland two years earlier for the same crime: attempting to smuggle an entire trunkful of opium over the border from British Columbia.

From the love and marriage beat: An Oregon high school girl, 17, was sent back to her parents after she attempted to elope with Seth S. Smith, of Spokane – who turned out to be married with children.

The couple were apprehended when they arrived in Spokane. Smith claimed at first that the girl was his niece. However, the girl soon admitted the truth. Smith then told officers he was divorced, but later amended his story to say that he “has started a divorce suit.”