100 years ago in Spokane: Arrest of railroad switchman busts up big dope ring

Railroad switchman W.J. Steed, 37, apparently had a second profession: dope peddler.

Police arrested Steed on a tip that he was a member of a local drug “gang.” Six capsules of cocaine were found concealed in the cuff of his trousers.

After his arrest, he sang like a bird.

“It is seldom that a drug peddler makes a full confession, but this man did it,” said Detective Burns. “He told us that he bought an ounce and a half of cocaine in Pasco … (and) that he had made it up into 500 capsules and had sold all but six of the 500 for 75 cents each.”

Burns said there were several other members of the “gang,” and that they covered a “regular route.” They would “take a specified amount to drug fiends whom they had on their list, much in the same way as grocers solicited orders years ago.”

Steed was facing federal narcotics charges.

From the accident beat: Three members of a rock-blasting crew died in rock slide just west of Bonners Ferry on the Great Northern rail line.

The three men touched off a blast – but it did not dislodge the amount of rock expected. Before they could take cover, rock began to slide from a point 30 feet above them and crushed all three to death.

One man was found underneath a 50-ton boulder. A dozen charges of dynamite were necessary to dislodge the boulder from the man’s body.

Also on this date

(From Associated Press)

1854: During the Crimean War, Britain and France declared war on Russia.