100 years ago in Spokane: Inmate who murdered jailer set to be deported

Steve Petoskey, the inmate who murdered Spokane city jailer William Nelson, was being sent back to his native Poland.

Deportation proceedings had already begun in federal court and he would soon “be on his way home,” in the words of the Spokane Daily Chronicle.

Petoskey was currently in the Eastern Washington Hospital for the Insane at Medical Lake, as it was known at the time. A judge had ruled him to be insane after the murder.

Evidently, the guards at Medical Lake would be glad to see him go because he was “causing much trouble.”

“A constant vigil is being kept over him to prevent him from attempting to take the lives of any of the guards.”

Petoskey had been arrested for entering a home and terrifying the residents by, among other things, going to the sink and washing his hair. He was being held in jail when he became angry and got the jump on the jailer and beat him to death.

Polish officials had already indicated that they planned to put Petoskey in a “proper institution for the care of the insane.”

From the fire beat: A fire destroyed a lumber mill and damaged a schoolhouse in Springston, Idaho, near Harrison.

The cause was described as a “vagrant spark.” The Russell and Pugh lumber mill was completely destroyed, along with a huge quantity of wood.

Also on this date

From the Associated Press

1983: Astronaut Sally K. Ride became America’s first woman in space as she and four colleagues blasted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger on a six-day mission.