100 years ago in Harrington: Bootlegger survives being shot six times

Bob Cress, a bootlegger, was peppered with six bullets during a wild gun battle in the offices of the Harrington Citizen newspaper.

Doctors removed five of the bullets and Cress was in good enough condition the next day to tell a lively story about the shooting.

It all began after the Harrington town marshal had spotted Cress’s car on a downtown street and deputized three local men, including the newspaper’s editor, to keep an eye on the car and arrest Cress and a companion. As soon as the two showed up at the car, the deputized men surrounded them and arrested them.

The three deputies hustled Cress and his companion into the newspaper office and searched Cress, taking away his pistol.

“As soon as (one of the deputized men) took my gun away from me, he shot two or three times through the showcase from excitement,” said Cress. “The man with him said, ‘What are you trying to do, kill us all?’ We were showed no authority, that is, no one showed us a star, and I thought they were a bunch of guys trying to get the five cases of branded whiskey, which I had in the car.”

Then, one of the deputies carelessly laid the pistol on the counter. Cress grabbed it back and yelled, “Stick ‘em up!” But one of the deputies behind Cress also had a gun, and he opened fire on Cress, shooting him through the jaw and in the back.

“I immediately dropped the gun, and he continued to shoot me in the back, while I had my hands up,” said Cress. “I could have shot him if I wanted to.”

Cress and his companion were both taken to Spokane on bootlegging changes

From the Marshal Foch beat: Before French Marshal Ferdinand Foch departed Spokane to continue his triumphant U.S. tour, he stopped by Gonzaga University to receive an “honorary degree of civil laws.”

Foch told the gathered students that he felt right at home at Gonzaga, because he too was educated in a Jesuit school.