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100 years ago in Spokane: Another moonshine bust, a strike development and a high school naming debate were making headlines

 (S-R archives)

Spokane dry squad officers raided a huge moonshine operation on the east side of Fish Lake.

They found more than 1,100 gallons of mash, a 10-gallon keg of finished moonshine and a still that had the capacity to make 70 gallons.

The officers said the whole operation was “right up to the minute in modern moonshining.”

Pete Doran, now in county jail, was apparently the master distiller.

“A little creek runs down into the lake and he had built a shanty alongside of this and piped the cool water from the creek into the distillery,” the sheriff said.

From the strike beat: The “Big Four” railroad unions – including engineers, firemen and conductors – decided not to stage a sympathy strike along with the striking rail shopmen.

They expressed their willingness to be mediators, but did not want to get drawn into the increasingly fractious strike.

This was seen as a blow to the shop strikers, since it meant the railroads could continue to operate without them, if on a reduced basis.

From the high school beat: A reader gave his suggestion for a new name for North Central High School: Columbia High School.

This came after a school board member suggested that North Central was too bland. The Spokane school superintendent said he was not crazy about renaming the school, but readers continued to send their suggestions to The Spokesman-Review.

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