100 years ago in Spokane: The city’s Veterans Day parade was one of ‘respect and quiet patriotism,’ while a Montana man found shot in the woods died from his injuries

Spokane hosted a giant Armistice Day parade, with 1,523 military veterans marching through downtown.

“It was not a parade of shouting, cheering and hilarity,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle noted. “It was a demonstration of respect and quiet patriotism, with many a head bared as the colors passed, and many an eye moist.”

In a solemn ceremony at Riverside Park Cemetery, Mrs. John C. Argall, a Gold Star mother, was chosen to lay a wreath “on the grave of a Spokane hero.”

The parade was followed immediately by a disarmament parade.

Disarmament was a popular cause following the trauma and carnage of the European war. For instance, the U.S. had proposed that all of the major powers should destroy many of their existing battleships. Most of the spectators remained on the street to watch the disarmament parade, which had been organized by the Spokane Sectional Central Labor Council.

From the murder mystery beat: William Moody Wry, a Montana cattle buyer, died at Sacred Heart Hospital of gunshot wounds, and Spokane police believed they were hot on the trail of his unidentified killer.

They obtained a complete description of the man who purchased the murder weapon from a downtown store on the day of the shooting. Police were searching for a man between the ages of 24 and 28, about 5-foot-4 and 135 pounds and “slouchily dressed” in a light yellowish-colored suit.

Detectives believed Wry had a reputation as a man who habitually carried large amounts of money and was reputed to have $2,000 in cash three days before his death.

He might have been shot by someone who saw him “flash his roll” and then lured him to the woods in the Garden Springs area. Or the shooter might have been someone with whom Wry was well acquainted.