100 years ago in Spokane: Dutch Jake rings in prohibition with cannon fire

From our archives,

100 years ago

A front-page cartoon showed an unhappy man riding a camel into a dry, dry desert.

Why? Because it was the first day of statewide prohibition in Washington.

“Crowds Storm Saloons For Last Drink – Supply Fails As Dry Era Dawns,” shouted a front-page banner headline.

The Spokesman-Review reported “much drunkenness” on the streets, as well as “quantities of noise” and “some comic opera touches.”

At the Davenport Hotel, a fashionably dressed woman “insisted on standing up and hurling balloons at occupants of neighboring tables.” When her husband protested, “she slapped him soundly on the top of his bald head.”

White’s Hotel bar was “invaded early in the evening by a determined squad of regular soldiers” – apparently from Fort George Wright – who were “bent not so much on patronizing the place as on disturbing the free action of the waiters.”

“One waiter was somewhat beaten about the head before police officers brought about the ejection of the soldiers,” wrote a reporter. “Thereafter, the entrance of White’s was bolted.”

After that, one disgusted White’s customer became bored and said “if this is what is called a good time,” he was going somewhere else. He walked out carrying a large mug of beer.

The death knell for alcohol was sounded, fittingly, by Dutch Jake Goetz’s cannon on the roof of the Coeur d’Alene Hotel. Dutch Jake fired the cannon at one minute intervals from 11:30 p.m. until midnight.