100 years ago today in Spokane: Cold snap temperatures plunge to 15 degrees below zero

Frozen pipes were bursting in Spokane as a brutal cold snap continued across the Northwest.

Spokane’s lows the last two nights were 15 below zero and 14 below zero. It was the “coldest early December weather in history,” said The Spokesman-Review.

Business were operating on reduced schedules, and that included plumbers, to the frustration of many homeowners.

One reporter went to a plumber’s shop and found that they were no longer even answering their phones.

“We already have all the business we can take care of, so what is the use of wasting time telling them that it is impossible for us to go out and thaw out their pipes?” said a plumber. “The best way is to let the phone ring.”

The reporter asked why he didn’t hire more men to go out and do the work.

“I didn’t come to Spokane to get my eye teeth cut with this freeze-up business,” he said. “When their pipes freeze and burst the plumber is the best fellow in the world, but when they get the bill, he is a robber.”

Some of those most affected by the cold were among the 75 people confined to their houses because of a smallpox quarantine.

Public health officials checked on those homes. In one home they found the water frozen, the heat low or nonexistent, and “four children and six dogs were found in one bed.” One of the children was taken to the hospital.