100 years ago in Spokane: For the love of radio, local stations agreed to go off the air twice a week

Spokane’s two commercial radio stations announced that they would take two nights off every week so Spokane listeners could tune in to more distant stations.

The Spokane Daily Chronicle asked readers to send letters describing any distant stations and unusual programming received by local radio enthusiasts. The Chronicle said it would run a regular feature listing these discoveries.

“Salt Lake City, Los Altos, and Catalina Islands are coming in particularly well,” reported the Chronicle.

The two local stations – KOE, operated by the Chronicle, and KFZ, operated by the Doerr-Mitchell Electric Co. – also announced an agreement to operate on alternate nights. Tuesdays and Fridays would belong to KOE, and Wednesdays and Saturdays would belong to KFZ.

From the railroad beat: Some of the railroad strikers were returning to their jobs on the Milwaukee Road. Company officials predicted that 25 Spokane strikers would be back at work within a week.

The ongoing labor crisis was still not over, however.

An executive from one of Spokane’s other main railroads, the Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Co. (Union Pacific), said flatly, “There will be no settlement with us.”

The other two main railroads, the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific, had not yet settled either. The union heads urged strikers to “refuse to be stampeded back to work under present conditions.”

Tensions remained high. One nonunion replacement worker was beaten up at the Hillyard shop in a fight with other employees. He had two black eyes and bruises on his head.