100 years ago in Spokane: Music scene improves; papers delivered by plane

Spokane had “one of the best musical seasons” in the city’s history in 1920, according to a story in The Spokesman-Review.

The city’s classical music society sponsored more and better “artistic concerts” than ever, mostly featuring touring musicians. One concert at the Auditorium Theater concluded with five calls for encores.

“The taste for concerts and good music is growing,” said the paper. “People who never thought of going to recitals before are now buying tickets.”

Also, the music teachers of Spokane reported record enrollments.

The city’s classical music organization was called the Spokane Symphony Society, although the city’s homegrown orchestra (an early precursor to today’s Spokane Symphony) had been forced to go on hiatus during World War I and the ensuing Spanish flu epidemic.

From the news beat: About 600 copies of The Spokesman-Review were bound for Lewiston via the quickest method of all, the airplane.

Pilot Nick Mamer was set to arrive in Lewiston at 7:20 a.m., more than seven hours earlier than the mail train that normally carried the newspaper. Lewiston residents could now read it at the breakfast table.

The paper also intended to initiate air delivery to Walla Walla and Yakima.

The story did note that there are “many obstacles in the way” of air delivery, including the lack of landing fields in all of the cities served by the paper, and the substantial weight of bundles of paper.

Also on this date

(From Associated Press)

1846: New York and Boston were linked by telegraph wires.