100 years ago in Spokane: Woman screams to stop attack

Bryn Stowe, 12, was walking home from Whittier School when a masked assailant jumped out of the bushes, thrust a revolver in her face, slapped a hand over her mouth and ordered her not to scream.

Naturally, she screamed as loud as she could.

She also fought back, and during the ensuing tussle, the man flung her to the ground twice.

Yet Bryn made such a commotion that the man was soon frightened away. He disappeared in the brush. Police were searching the area and they believed that the assailant was “demented.”

From the moniker beat: Two local brothers petitioned the court to have their surnames legally changed to Rauth.

They had a good reason.

The men were named Frank Benton Raught and Charles Ackley Raught. The problem, they told the judge, was that everyone called them “Rot.”

From the mail beat: A Spokane postal inspector had been sent to Marshfield, Ore., to investigate one of the biggest mail thefts in the Northwest’s history.

The steamer Santa Clara, carrying 200 sacks of mail, was wrecked offshore and washed up on the beach. Marshfield residents apparently looted the hulk and set fire to it. They carried the loot, which included cash and a large shipment of shoes, into town in wagons.

“A large part of the population” was now walking around in new shoes. Authorities were preparing between 50 and 100 indictments.