100 years ago in Spokane: Roads association head urges city to buy road to top of Mt. Spokane

Frank W. Guilbert, the head of the Spokane County Good Roads Association, urged the Spokane County commissioners to purchase the most scenic road in the region: the road to the top of Mount Spokane.

He predicted it would be “as big a thing” for Spokane tourism as the Columbia River highway was for Portland, the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported.

“The feature of Mount Spokane is the fact that the sightseer can stand on its top and get a perfect view in every direction, a thing rarely possible,” he said. “The mountain top is 3,000 feet above Riverside.”

The purchase would cost the county $30,000, but Guilbert believed it would be a bargain, since at least that much money had already been spent on its construction. If the county purchased it, it would become “Spokane’s asset.”

From the aviation beat: “Literally thousands” of Spokane residents converged on Spokane’s two airfields to watch three airplanes perform “loops, Immelmans, tailspins, nose dives” and other stunts. Some of these stunts were performed with paying passengers. In all, 28 passengers received rides.

Both airfields were on the eastern outskirts of the city, one at Parkwater and the other, on East Sprague, called the Symons-Russell airfield.

Foster Russell, local aviator, said these demonstrations showed the promise that Spokane held as an air center.

“As far as we know, it is the only city in which flying has been done every day during the winter,” he said. “The old theory that Spokane has bad air currents has been thoroughly dispelled.”