100 years ago in Spokane: People waited until the last minute to buy Christmas presents in 1920, too

Last-minute Christmas shopping was in full swing, and the ads in the Spokane Daily Chronicle showed what was on offer in 1920:

• The Wilson Sales Stables Co. was offering “tea wagon bodies” (mobile tea-and-coffee booths) for sale as children’s playhouses. The ad called it a “surprise Christmas present for the kiddies that some one else has not bought them.” The company offered to deliver the wagons, complete with shelves, drawers and windows, anywhere in Spokane on Christmas Eve. And when the children outgrew it as a playhouse, it “will make a handsome chicken house.”
• Joyner’s Original Cut-Rate Drug Store was offering “close-out prices in all big dolls.” The store also had specials on pocket knives, Kodak cameras (“Get the Habit”), poker chips and “electric vibrators” (“let us demonstrate this wonderful machine to you”).

Mrs. Porter’s Puddings, out of Seattle, was offering its fruit, fig or plum puddings in a can. Without it, your Christmas or New Year’s Dinner “would not be a complete success.”

• The Simon Piano Co. offered not only pianos, but a variety of fine phonographs (record players), including the high-end Brooks model, which “repeats records from one to ten times without attention.”

• The Emporium encouraged parents to “get the kiddies a deep, warm blanket – a real treat to them.”

• The Spokane Cycle Co. offered bicycles and “velocipedes” (tricycles) for the child “whose parents are thoughtful.”

On this day

(From Associated Press)

1913: The Federal Reserve System was created as President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act.