100 years ago in Spokane: Here’s what the Davenport Hotel had on tap to celebrate New Year’s Eve 1922

The Davenport Hotel was going all out for its New Year’s Eve Frolic.

“Instead of merely the customary Revue, there will be a series of Musical Novelties in which will be featured unusual artists in beautiful singing, dancing, spectacular and vaudeville numbers,” according to a hotel ad.

Here’s what was on the bill:

When The Lights Go Down in Chinatown: This was touted as “an Oriental conception of rare beauty, to be opened by the entrance of two sprite-like dainty Chinese attendants bearing incense burners.” The musical numbers would include the Davenport Girl Quartet, rendering a Chinese operatic number.

• A South Sea Fantasy: Opening with Hawaiian songs and Mildred Quist in an interpretive dance. Ruth Mills would sing “‘Neath the South Sea Moon,” accompanied by “the Tahiti Chorus in South Sea Island costumes.”
• An Arctic Frolic: A soprano would sing an Alaskan ballad, followed by “the Polar Bear Cub Ballet” doing a dance. Then, a duo called McHenry and Gibney would perform a “skating dance,” to be followed by an “Arctic Barn Dance.”

Tickets were $4 for those in the Marie Antoinette Room, the Isabella Room and the Italian Gardens; and only $2.50 for those in the Hall of Doges and the Elizabethan Room. And those prices included “dancing, supper and entertainment.”

The event would actually be held on Dec. 30, because New Year’s Eve fell on a Sunday.

From the weather beat: The extreme cold snap continued to cause problems throughout the region. A Spokane United Railway official said he did not recall a period in 18 years in which they had so many streetcar interruptions. Some streetcars required regular trips to the car barn for thawing. Despite this, passenger traffic was heavy because of Christmas shoppers.

The previous night’s low of 15 below zero was the second-coldest December day on record to that date.