Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The Spokesman-Review’s editorial page said the Jesuits chose Mount St. Michael, just north of Hillyard, as the site of its under-construction seminary for a good reason: the “superior energizing influences of the Inland Northwest climate.”

Father DeSmet recognized the “health-giving qualities of the climate of the Spokane valley” all the way back in the summer of 1846. He said the Indians’ life in the region’s open air was conducive to health.

The paper claimed that scientists of the day were coming to understand what the Jesuits already had observed: “That the best climate is not that temporarily pleasing to the senses – soft, equitable and enticing – but one with distinct changes of the seasons and enough of winter frost and snow to put tang into the atmosphere and quick movement to mass activities.

“Such a climate is conducive to health, to industry, to man’s inventive faculties, and to various elements that make possible the development of the highest civilization.”

In fact, the editorial said a recent paper by a Yale University professor pronounced that the entire Northwest was one of only five “centers of high civilization and climatic energy” in the world. The others were western Europe, Japan, California and southeastern Australia (including New Zealand).