100 years ago in Spokane: Tailor’s side business lands him in jail

H.L. Myers gave his profession as tailor, but he had a second vocation: whiskey distiller.

Spokane police raided his home on East 11th Avenue and found something unusual in his bathroom. A copper boiler was suspended over the bathtub and a cooling tank was on the floor. He was making whiskey out of corn syrup and sugar, and police seized 15 gallons of his bootleg liquor.

While Myers was being led to the police station, a reporter asked if he had “found it easy to dispose of your booze.”

“No,” said the tailor. “It hasn’t been selling very well.”

From the naval beat: A 7,625-ton cargo ship was christened The Coeur d’Alene at the Hog Island shipyards in Philadelphia.

The first lady of the United States herself had suggested the name. According to the Associated Press, Edith Wilson became “enamored with the little Idaho city” while on tour with the president.

From the aviation beat: The Barnard Brothers, local aviators, came up with an innovative way to distribute football tickets.

They planned to drop tickets from the sky as they flew over the city. They planned to drop 5,000 “football bombs,” 30 of which would contain tickets to the Gonzaga game against Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University).

The exact makeup of these “football bombs” was not specified.