100 years ago in Spokane: A new concept for the city, a junior high school, was being floated

The Spokane School Board was considering a new kind of school in the city – a junior high.

The superintendent was preparing a recommendation calling for “at least one junior high school to be built during 1922 or 1923,” and maybe two.

The superintendent presented this as an alternative to building a third high school. A junior high would “relieve both the elementary and high schools from their congested conditions.”

From the oil fraud beat: A federal grand jury was summoned in Spokane to look further into the question of whether Spokane’s “oil fever” was based on fraud.

Even though a fraud case against Alfred L’Ecuyer had been dismissed by a federal commissioner a few weeks earlier, new facts were being gathered. An investigator from the U.S. Bureau of Mines declined to say what he had found so far, although he did note that one particular sheen of oil from a Spokane well came from the fact that there had already been grease at the bottom of the tub.

“I cautioned them against fooling themselves in this way and was assured that they were careful,” the inspector said.

From the ice beat: An ice harvesting crew took out more than 1,500 tons of ice from Fernan Lake near Coeur d’Alene.

“The ice is about 10 inches thick and is said to be of the best quality harvested here in years,” a correspondent wrote.

In that era, ice from northern lakes was harvested and stored, and then shipped around the country.