100 years ago in Spokane: Wildfires engulf homes, schoolhouse near Diamond Lake

Some of the worst wildfires since 1910 threatened ranch houses, schoolhouses and lumber mills in the Pend Oreille and Newport areas.

The Rogers Schoolhouse near Diamond Lake burned, along with several houses.

“Fifty men from Newport worked all last night getting people out of the path of the flames,” said a correspondent. “Thirteen of the men were trapped for a time on the John Rogers farm, but by working all night managed to work themselves out of danger.”

The Graham lumber mill “was saved by heroic efforts.” Thick smoke around Diamond Lake caused one woman to faint and caused several auto accidents because of reduced visibility.

New blazes were popping up around Bonners Ferry and farther south around Avery as well.

From the wheat beat: A threshing machine burned up near Walla Walla because of a “smut explosion.”

This was one of the frightening dangers of harvesting. A buildup of spores from the disease called wheat smut clogged up the thresher and ignited from static electricity.

“The explosion blew off a headed box and the machine was a mass of flames in a moment,” the newspaper reported. Nobody was hurt, but many people had been injured in smut explosions in previous years.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1960: The newly renamed Beatles (formerly the Silver Beetles) began their first gig in Hamburg, West Germany, at the Indra Club.