100 years ago in Spokane: The lure of baseball betting was so strong that businessmen, women, children ‘and even some preachers’ were giving in

Spokane police opened up a new front in the war against gambling. They were cracking down on baseball betting pools operated in cigar stores and billiard parlors.

“As this is a bookmaking proposition, it is being stopped,” said Martin J. Burns, captain of detectives.

He said baseball pools had started up in Spokane after it had become a craze in Butte.

“Two resorts in Butte had been doing a land office business with as much as $2,500 in the pot for one day, Burns said.

“Everybody seemed to take tickets in the game. Two 14-year-old boys, after paying 25 cents for a couple of tickets, walked away from one place with $1,000.

“… It is said that doctors, lawyers, businessmen, women and children, and even some preachers, were putting in 25 cents each day.”

Burns was determined to nip this business in the bud.

From the strike beat: The Milwaukee Road, Union Pacific and Great Northern railways escalated their campaign against the 1,600 striking shop workers in Spokane when they announced the strikers’ jobs would be “filled as rapidly as possible.”

They “threw open the doors to nonunion men and union men alike.”

This was characterized as a “severe blow” to the strikers, but the 1,600 local men continued to stand firm. This was part of a nationwide strike of railway shop workers.

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