100 years ago today: Spokane’s Carl Johnson jumps to Olympic silver

Carl Johnson of Spokane won a silver medal in the long jump at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium.

Johnson was born in Michigan but moved to Spokane at a young age and attended Lewis and Clark High School, where he once long-jumped 23 feet, 4-and-a-half inches, a record that has stood at the school for more than 100 years.

After high school, Johnson went back to Michigan to attend the University of Michigan where he was a star track-and-field athlete.

His silver medal-winning jump at the Olympics was actually an inch shy of his high school jump, at 23 feet, 3-and-a half inches.

From the accident beat: Ellen O’Donovan McNamara, 68, of New York, fell three stories to her death through the Davenport Hotel’s large glass skylight.

“It is believed that she tried to cross the court by way of the skylight, thinking that the glass was strong enough to bear her weight,” said The Spokesman-Review. “She evidently opened the door which leads into the glass pagoda above the lobby and stepped down upon the glass roof.”

She fell all the way to the lobby floor. She was conscious for only a few seconds, during which she said, “Where did I go?” Then she became “insensible” and died an hour later.