100 years ago in Spokane: A deputy found ‘the worst case of vandalism’ he had seen while looking for booze

Three Spokane County deputies raided the Curtis Ranch between Marshall and Cheney looking for liquor.

They found no liquor, but they found two men, Joe Curtis and Morgan Sharp, working on “a crude-looking Cadillac bug.”

The meaning of “bug” is not clear, but it seems to have meant a torn-up car.

“The touring body of the car had been cut to pieces,” The Spokesman-Review wrote.

When officers noticed that the car was virtually new, they became suspicious.

Deputies hauled in the two men on poaching charges because they were in possession of ducks and a pheasant out of season.

Authorities subsequently learned the Cadillac had been stolen in Seattle.

When confronted with that information, the two men confessed “they went to Seattle and when they went broke they stole the car, which they said belongs to the manager at the New Washington Hotel in Seattle.” The Cadillac was brand new and had cost $4,600, a huge sum in those days.

The sheriff called it “the worst case of vandalism I have seen.”

On this day

(From Associated Press)

1957: Nine Black students who’d been forced to withdraw from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, because of unruly white crowds were escorted to class by members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

1981: Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.