100 years ago in Spokane: French Army buys horses

From our archives,

100 years ago

Two members of a French wartime commission purchased 120 horses in one day’s work in Spokane.

J. Lamaysonnoube and Count de la Boutetiere inspected horses at the union stockyards in Spokane and found 21 suitable for cavalry use, 50 for light artillery use and 49 for heavy artillery use.

The European war was taking a terrible toll on horses as well as men, and the French army was in desperate need of fresh horses. Spokane, with its rail service and stockyards, had become a clearinghouse for horse purchases by both the British and French armies.

A reporter said the two men were experts – one the head of the French veterinary service and the other (the count) a cavalry officer. They worked “hard and fast,” taking only vigorous and sound animals.

If the horses passed their preliminary inspection, they turned it over to a bronco buster “to saddle and ride at a trot and a gallop.”

The inspection drew a large crowd of spectators, “who expected to witness something in the nature of a Wild West Show.”

“In this they were disappointed, as the great majority of the animals offered for sale proved well-broken,” the reporter said. “Few of them bucked at all and only two or three bucked hard.”

He noted that most of them were farm horses.

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(From the Associated Press)

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