100 years ago in Spokane: Single Spokane women vie to win lucrative popularity contest

From our archives, 100 years ago

Five young, single Spokane women were vying to win a lucrative popularity contest.

Theatergoers at the Pantages Theater were being shown photos of the five women each evening during the week. Then, people voted for their favorite. The winner would be crowned on Booster Day at the Interstate Fair.

The stakes were high. The winner would receive a new Chevrolet auto. The second-place winner would receive a diamond ring.

Each of the women were representing a local business and were actively campaigning throughout the city. Miss Minnie Small, representing the Culbertson-Grote-Rankin company, was said to be “leaving a train of Interstate fair tickets behind her.”

Miss Blanche Fields, representing Kemp & Herbert, declared that she had “just begun to work,” and when the next count of ballots was taken, she would be “found in the front rank.”

From the drowning beat: Women in the Hangman Creek area demanded that “immediate steps be taken” to fill the swimming hole where Joseph Brenner, 8, drowned the day before.

They said two other boys had drowned in the same swimming hole years earlier.

The mayor promised to take the matter up with the commissioners and have the hole filled.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1996: President Bill Clinton signed welfare legislation ending guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanding work from recipients.