100 years ago in Spokane: A big strike was planned for the city’s railway workers, and the Mullan statue at Fourth of July Pass was hit by ‘motorist vandals’

About 1,800 railway shop employees in Spokane were poised to go on strike as part of a nationwide effort called by six railway craft unions.

The railroad industry was one of Spokane’s largest employers. The Great Northern shops alone employed 900 “craft workers and maintenance-of-way” workers. They intended to walk out in two days.

They were protesting against a sweeping pay cut, among other issues.

“It is not so much the wage reduction that the men are objecting to, but the modification of rules by the labor board, cutting down overtime pay and the farming out of railroad work to outside contractors,” a local union head was quoted as saying.

The railroad executives condemned it as a “strike against America,” and vowed to keep the trains running.

From the vandalism beat: The 12-foot marble statue of Capt. John Mullan atop Fourth of July Pass was defaced “by marking and mutilation” by “motorist vandals.”

Motorist vandals? This meant auto tourists who were not exactly treating the statue with respect.

“Sunday, a girl climbed to the top of the monument and wrote her name on the statue,” said an official of the Inland Automobile Association. “… The top of the gun is broken off, as are also one hand and the butt of the revolver.”

The nearby Mullan Tree, where Mullan’s road work party had famously carved an inscription on the Fourth of July 1861, was in no better shape. Tourists had carved their initials all over the trunk.

Today, the tree is gone, victim of a storm, but the statue remains, near the pass at the Mullan Road Historical Site.