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100 years ago in Spokane: Men found not guilty of pretending to be teens to play football at Lewis and Clark

 (Spokane Daily Chronicle archives)

Two Lewis and Clark High School football players were found not guilty of perjury for lying about their ages in order to play football.

Raymond Duncan, 22, and Harold Ingerlund, 23, had appeared in court a year earlier, when they petitioned to have the LC principal become their guardian. This was a way for the men, from out of town, to play football at LC.

At that earlier hearing, they were alleged to have lied about their ages under oath. Testimony in this hearing failed to prove the case, since witnesses could not recall exactly what the boys had said. The judge in this case said the state failed to prove perjury with any direct proof, and he ordered the jury to find the boys not guilty.

From the parks beat: The huge column of rock known as the Devil’s Wedge at 11th Avenue and Sherman Street was offered to the city by its owner, Henry Bernard.

The Spokane Daily Chronicle described the rock formation as “two basalt columns towering 85 feet high, held apart at the top by a wedge, leaving a space between the columns large enough for a person to pass between them.”

It was already a well-known natural feature, having been given a full-page spread in Collier’s Weekly magazine and mentioned in Harper’s magazine. The top of the wedge was large enough for “100 people to stand and obtain a panoramic view of the city,” said the Chronicle, with a bit of exaggeration.

The owner said “it should be preserved as one of the notable curiosities of the city.”

The park evidently never came to pass, but the massive basalt outcrop still looms over 11th Avenue.

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