100 years ago in Spokane: The city’s only woman aviator was still in bad shape after a crash at Parkwater Field

Daisy Smith, Spokane’s sole woman aviator, was still clinging to life at St. Luke’s Hospital.

She had “gained a little strength, but she had not regained consciousness.”

Smith suffered a fractured skull, internal injuries, a broken leg and numerous cuts and bruises when her plane went into a tailspin while approaching Parkwater Field.

Dr. S.E. Lambert, who operated on her, said he had “not seen anyone so badly mangled since he left the battlefields of France.”

Crowds estimated at more than 2,000 gawked at the crash site, and “many stripped away portions of the plane to carry away as souvenirs.”

From the farming beat: Horace Sykes, a fire prevention expert, gave a presentation to farmers on how to prevent a wheat smut explosion.

Wheat smut explosion?

It sounds bizarre, but it was a deadly peril that had claimed the lives of many Inland Northwest wheat farmers and injured many others.

During threshing, large amounts of smut or dust built up on the threshing machine, and sometimes a spark would ignite a deadly explosion. Sykes said the spark usually came from static electricity, generated by the machine’s friction.

Although combines were becoming common, some farmers still transported wheat to a stationary threshing machine.

Sykes recommended that farmers connect all moving parts of the threshing machine by wire to a grounding rod, buried 3 feet in the ground. He also recommended that farmers prevent a buildup of too much dust or smut by using a fan to blow it away from the machine.