100 years ago in Spokane: Boy Scouts and a cinematographer endured brutal conditions on a trek up Mt. Spokane

A group of Boy Scouts, along with a Seattle cinematographer, snowshoed their way through up to “12 feet of snow” on Mt. Spokane.

“We experienced very cold weather near the mountaintop and were forced to make camp in four feet of snow,” the scoutmaster said. “We reached Cook’s first cabin about two hours before dark and some of the party decided to remain there for the night. Four of us, in an effort to reach the upper cabin, were forced to make our camp in the snow. We ascended the top early Sunday morning and spent several hours on the summit.”

The Spokane Daily Chronicle did not specify why W.H. Hudson, a Seattle-based cameraman with film production company Pathe, was making the trek with the Boy Scouts, but it is safe to assume he was gathering some wintertime film footage. The Chronicle ran a front page photo of one member of the party, slogging his way along a trail on snowshoes.

In a related story, the Boy Scouts announced plans to build a “rough log cabin” as a halfway stopping place between Cook’s lower cabin and the summit.

From the justice beat: J.C. Miller, a convict serving time in Montana for murdering the son of prominent Spokane builder J.W. Green, sought a pardon on what appeared to be reasonable grounds. He claimed that Green himself had recently made a “deathbed confession,” in which Green admitted he murdered his son.

Montana authorities contacted Spokane County Sheriff C.E. Long to check on the story. Long had an excellent reason to believe the convict’s story was nonsense. Green had visited the sheriff at his office earlier on the very day the request came in from Montana.

Just to make sure, the sheriff went to Green’s apartments in the Monroe Building and found him still “very much alive.” Green strenuously denied making any such confession, deathbed or otherwise.