100 years ago in Liberty Lake: A boating tragedy triggered suspicion that a faulty vessel led to four deaths

Were the four recent drownings on Liberty Lake caused by a faulty boat?

That’s one of the questions that a coroner’s jury would be asked to determine.

Several days earlier, Henry Bittner, Boyd Bittner, Walton Bittner and Mrs. Welcome Ferguson rented a boat on Liberty Lake. They never returned.

The father of two of the Bittner boys alleged that the boat was the problem. He found an air compartment that he said was not securely fastened to the boat. One boat was found nearly overturned in the lake with a missing air compartment.

The question was complicated by the fact that three boats were found on the shore after the accident, and no one was certain which was the fateful one. The rental manager said the boat used that day was in perfectly good shape. Another witness said the upturned boat was not the one used by the Bittner party.

Only one body had been recovered, despite searches by airplane and by divers.

From the missing persons beat: H. Olson declared that his daughter, Myrtle Olson, 12, had been kidnapped.

She was found on a train in Three Forks, Mont., in the company of her aunt, Mrs. Ingmar Schmidt. Her aunt was arrested for kidnapping and held in Bozeman.

But not for long.

Montana Gov. Joseph Dixon refused to extradite her back to Washington after hearing Myrtle’s story.

Myrtle told the governor that she had been mistreated by her father and stepmother in Spokane. She wrote to her aunt in St. Paul to come and take her away. Her aunt had not “induced” her to leave home in any way.

The governor ordered them released and said they would be allowed to continue on to St. Paul.