100 Years Ago in Spokane: Schools brace for postwar enrollment; Tickets selling out for scenic plane rides

With the war over, colleges and high schools were expecting big increases in enrollment.

“Many, who with the opening of the war left college and high school, are planning to take up their school work where they left off,” said the Spokane Daily Chronicle.

The Spokane school superintendent said he expected an increase of 400 students. The (now defunct) Spokane University expected enrollment to double to 400.

Whitworth College said registrations looked “very promising” and the Holy Names Academy also expected an increase.

Gonzaga University had been one of the few schools with healthy enrollment numbers in 1918 because it was a student training corps site. Yet it, too, was expecting high enrollment in 1919.

“A number of Spokane young men and women are going east to school this fall, but the western colleges are receiving a larger percentage of Spokane people,” reported the Chronicle. Washington State College was drawing the largest crowd, followed by the University of Washington.

From the aviation beat: Joe Kennedy, a newsboy, discovered that he could make a higher profit in a new, modern industry. Joe was selling scenic airplane flight tickets at $10 a throw, in partnership with pilot T.W. “Tom” Symons. Joe sold 15 tickets in “one fell swoop” outside the Davenport Hotel, and was still going strong.

“Tell you about it later,” Joe said to a reporter. “Too busy now.”