100 Years Ago in Spokane: City set nationwide heat record

Spokane held a dubious distinction: It was the hottest city in the United States on the previous day.

Spokane’s high temperature of 98 was 2 degrees higher than any other city. The second-place city, at 96, was Yakima, suffering under the same hot spell.

Such notoriously hot cities as New Orleans and Galveston didn’t even make it into the 90s.

At press time at 11 a.m., Spokane was threatening to repeat the feat, with a reading of 88.

From the coroner beat: Friends of a Mrs. H. Brock of Henderson, Montana, were mailing a photo of her to the coroner’s office in Spokane in an attempt to clear up the mystery of a woman found dead in a bathtub in a Spokane hotel.

The Montana woman had been missing from some time and her name matched the name on the hotel register.

Meanwhile, another promising lead came from Toppenish. A man said he was on a train to Spokane several days before and met a Mrs. Broch (or Brock) while the train was delayed several hours by an accident. She became quite talkative, he said, and told him that she was from Seattle, and that she “was tired of living.”

She “wanted to get away from her friends, saying she was weary and death would be a relief.” The man did not take her seriously, thinking she was “just talking,” but when he saw the news stories about the “mystery” woman, he thought it might be her.

His description of her matched in several particulars, notably a “scar under her left ear.”

The cause of death was still not certain, although an empty bottle labeled “poison” was found in her room.