100 years ago in Spokane: Radio was popping up in more and more areas of life — including forestry

Radio was beginning to transform many facets of life – even the work of the region’s forest rangers.

R.B. Adams, “the inventor of forestry wireless,” came to Spokane to tell the story of how radio would soon be used to report fires throughout North Idaho and Montana.

The story began in 1919 when Adams was in a tent in the Bitterroots with the receiver set he had invented. For the first time, he successfully received a message from a ranger 12 miles away.

Now, the Forest Service was making efforts to install sets in remote areas throughout the region’s forests.

“Mr. Adams is thinking of the lonely forest patrol men, 50 or 100 miles from the closest neighbor, who is getting his evening entertainment from the Fremont Hotel in San Francisco through his radio set and of the fortunes being saved in the Inland Empire forests by the prompt and never-ending reports of small fires made through the radio,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle wrote.

From the justice beat: The findings of the unofficial citizen’s committee, looking into possible witness tampering in the Maurice P. Codd murder case, could possibly end up before a grand jury.

Prosecutors, still stung by Codd’s acquittal, said they would consider such a course. Prosecutors said a number of affidavits had also been filed relating to this issue since the close of the trial – although the contents of those affidavits had not yet been disclosed.

Lillian Bergland, landlady of the Granite Building where the Codd incident took place, said that the reputation of her hotel had been seriously damaged by innuendoes raised during the trial. She said she would welcome a grand jury probe.

“I believe the truth will be brought out there, and my hotel and myself given a clean and just bill of health,” Bergland said.