100 years ago in Spokane: Silver foxes come to the interstate fair

For the first time ever, silver foxes would make an appearance at Spokane’s Interstate Fair.

Several local entrepreneurs were raising silver foxes in hopes of creating a new fur trade industry in the region.

At least three fox farms in the region planned to enter animals in the fair competition. Silver foxes apparently were worth about $1,200 a pair.

After an optimistic start, the fox fur industry never truly took hold in the region.

From the farm beat: Meanwhile, another form of wildlife, the jackrabbit, was “playing havoc” with Grant County crops.

“The districts around Moses Lake are badly infested,” said a federal biologist who was trying to control the rabbits.

“The jackrabbits are so numerous that in some instances they have eaten whole fields of alfalfa down to the roots.”

The biologist said they had already poisoned about 2,500 jackrabbits in the Moses Lake area, but that was not enough. Now, he was asking farmers to build a wire fence corral about 40 feet across – to keep livestock out – and place poison inside the corral.

Farmers were also planning on conducting giant “rabbit drives” in the fall and winter, in which rabbits were herded to their deaths. In one particularly large drive in Walla Walla, 60,000 rabbits had been slaughtered.