Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The Chamber of Commerce’s tourism committee recommended a plan to make Mount Spokane a top tourist attraction.

Francis H. Cook, who owned most of the land, had already constructed a road that ended about three miles from the top. Many people already were driving the road, but they had to endure the “inconvenience of a three-mile horseback ride” if they wanted to get to the wonderful summit view.

So the chamber was proposing finishing the road to the summit and building “adequate hotel accommodations.”

From that eminence, tourists could “peep into British Columbia” to the north, and peer east into the “snowy peaks of the Rockies,” including Glacier National Park.

“It is the most wonderful view in the world, and I am not prejudiced,” Cook said. “I am simply reporting what others have said who have seen for themselves from the mountain top.”

The paper reported, with some astonishment, that auto drivers could now drive from the mountain all the way to Spokane in a little over two hours, and “one party negotiated the mountain road several hours after dark.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

2009: Michael Jackson, the “King of Pop,” died in Los Angeles at age 50.