100 years ago in Spokane: Supposed radical breaks out in song after breaking into meeting

Spokane Rotary Club members were incensed when a disheveled man who looked like a Wobbly “radical” broke into their meeting at the Davenport Hotel’s Hall of Doges, the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported.

They were about to eject him when he did something unusual. He began to sing.

Turns out, he was “Hobo” Gordon, a professional entertainer, who “lends a picturesque atmosphere to his performance” by appearing as a hobo, or, in more exalted parlance, a “knight of the road.”

The Rotarians relented and allowed him to sing. After hearing his song and his “hard luck story,” two of the assembled theater managers bid for his services.

Dr. H.S. Clemmer won the bidding war and booked “Hobo” Gordon into the Clemmer Theater – today’s Bing Crosby Theater.

From the mine-rescue beat: Rescuers renewed their work with urgency at the Hunter Mine near Mullan, Idaho, after they heard new signals – tapping sounds – from the area where two miners were trapped in a cave-in.

Rescuers were now using two diamond drills in an attempt to at least cut a hole through to the trapped men, to pass food and water to them and to communicate with them, the Chronicle said.

Rescuers still faced a daunting task.

“We do not know where they are, is the trouble, and the rock we are going through is very hard,” the mine manager said.