100 years ago in Eastern Washington: Two killings, one high-profile and the other just mysterious, were generating buzz

A murder mystery was unfolding in the town of Republic.

Neighbors found the body of Paul Hanes, described as “a Russian,” in the garden of his ranch near the San Poil River. He had been shot from the front, and had apparently been dead about a week.

Hanes lived alone and “little is known about the man, save that he spoke several languages and had acted as an interpreter during trials.”

He was said to have “a quarrelsome disposition and to have had many enemies.” No inquest had yet been held, and authorities had no leads.

Also from the shooting beat: Wesley Howarth, 34, the son of a well-known Wallace mining broker, was shot dead by a young woman “following a quarrel between them” in a hotel.

The woman was in jail on second-degree murder charges.

As for Howarth, “many residents of Wallace came to town” to attend his funeral service.

From the censorship beat: An Iowa pastor, addressing the Presbyterian general assembly in Spokane, said that “the questionable or suggestive moving picture” is one of the greatest menaces to young people.

These kinds of movies put “false, wild and immoral ideas into the minds of young people.”

Also on this day

(From Associated Press)

1863: The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, made up of freed Blacks, left Boston to fight for the Union in the Civil War.

1940: During World War II, the Belgian army surrendered to invading German forces.