100 years ago in Spokane: Inmate accused of murdering jailer professes not to know he did it

Steve Potaskey, held in city jail for murdering jailer William Nelson, admitted to officers and a Spokesman-Review reporter that he struck Nelson four or five times and that Nelson fell and “struck his head on the threshold of the toilet leading from the jail office.”

Potaskey said he was angry because he was being held in “that dark hole” – the cell that was called the “tank.” He called out, asking Nelson to get him out. When Nelson let him out, Potaskey struck him repeatedly.

“Potaskey was entirely unconscious of having killed Nelson,” wrote the reporter who heard Potaskey’s statement. “He has been told so several times and expressed surprise each time. … (He also) does not seem to realize that he is confined in jail, for he told his listeners he would have to leave because he was out of money and could not pay his board.”

From the religion beat: The contract was awarded for the construction of a new Jewish temple at Eighth Avenue and Walnut Street, in the amount of $175,000.

“The main auditorium will have a seating capacity of 500 to 600,” said The Spokesman-Review. “Under the auditorium will be the gymnasium and an assembly room with a stage at one end.”

The temple would not be finished until 1928. It remained the congregation’s home until a new synagogue was built in the late 1960s. The building now houses the Plymouth Congregational Church.