100 years ago in the Inland Northwest: Agents stopped bootleggers from smuggling 1,272 quarts of whisky into Canada

Bold bootleggers attempted to smuggle 1,272 quarts of whisky over the Canadian border in a railroad coal car, but they were nabbed after federal officers let loose a fusillade of gunshots.

The agents had been tipped off about the shipment and had kept a watch on the train as soon as it crossed the border into Idaho at Eastport. At the Grand Junction station near Post Falls, agents saw five men attempt to break the seal on the freight car and uncover the liquor.

When agents descended on them, they attempted to flee and stopped only after officers fired into the air – or in one case, fired at the feet of one of the fleeing men. Some others escaped in waiting autos.

The Spokesman-Review noted that all of the liquor was of the Sandy McDonald and Sunnybrook brands.

From the history beat: A Spokane War History Committee was continuing the work of documenting the story of the world war in Spokane.

This included the surprisingly complex task of compiling a full list of casualties. This was complicated by the fact that not all of Spokane’s dead, missing and wounded were in the American armed services.

“Many of these casualties occurred in Canadian, English and other foreign service,” one of the women who was compiling the list said. Some of the parents of these men had moved away from Spokane.

The adjutant general’s office “has no leisure as yet to sift out and report on individual cases.” Mistakes in the official records were not uncommon.

In fact, “a considerable number of doughboys officially dead by war department records are still eating three square meals a day and enjoying life.”