From our archives,

100 years ago

One thing about “champion bad man Fred Johnson” – he didn’t give up easily.

This desperado already had made numerous escape attempts, one of which was foiled only when he was shot while trying to swim across the Spokane River.

Jailers caught him trying to escape from his Spokane County Jail cell several other times, once by digging through some masonry, prompting them to keep nearly a 24-hour watch on him.

Still, Johnson managed to concoct a new escape scheme, He made a weapon out of his bedsprings while he was supposedly attending a religious meeting. Then he created a “dummy” out of blankets to look like he was sleeping in his cot. Then he managed to “slip into an adjoining cell” when allowed access to a bathtub to do his laundry.

He hid in the adjoining cell and waited with his homemade “bludgeon.” However, a guard checked in on Johnson’s cell and thought the dummy looked suspicious, He foiled Johnson’s latest plan and Johnson was marched back to his own cell at gunpoint.

Now, jail authorities announced they were placing him in the “hole”: A bare cell with no furniture of any kind.