100 years ago today: drownings lead to better lifesaving equipment at area resorts

A rash of drownings prompted the proprietors of the area’s lake resorts to improve their lifesaving equipment.

Representatives of the resorts visited the city’s emergency hospital to get advice on equipment.

They were advised to get a set of grappling hooks and ropes, a fast boat (available at all times) and “pulmotors” (resuscitation devices).

Of course, a “pair of husky arms, trained in the rudiments of resuscitation,” was an even better idea. In fact, an emergency hospital steward said that in most cases, artificial respiration was more effective than a pulmotor.

“Anyone can learn it, and it is the best thing I have ever seen,” the steward said. “I have made dead men breathe by the use of it.”

The pulmotors, or “lung-motors,” would be useful, too, as long as they were available right at the lakes and ready to use.

“There is no use in phoning to Spokane for one, because it would be too late to do anything by the time it arrived,” the steward said.

From the hotel beat: The Pacific Hotel, at First Avenue and Post Street, was scheduled to a get a new dining room and cafe, five times the size of the hotel’s existing Oasis Cafe.

“A 30-foot soda fountain will be installed on the north side of the main dining room, extending from the hotel entrance to the Oasis entrance,” owner Victor Dessert said. “… The main dining room will be 65 feet by 86 feet, with a 20-foot ceiling. The architectural treatment will be of the modern Egyptian type.”

On this day

(From Associated Press)

1992: Democrat Bill Clinton tapped Tennessee Sen. Al Gore to be his running mate