100 years ago in Spokane: A proposed home for unwed mothers became a NIMBY issue, 1923-style

The city council sanctioned a new Florence Crittenton Home for Girls – that is, a home for unwed mothers – at a site on 11th Avenue and Jefferson Street.

Spokane’s current Crittenton home, on Crestline Street, “is so old and run down that it is no longer suitable for a home for girls,” an official of the national Crittenton organization said.

The organization planned to use the building on the new site – the former Houston School – as part of the new hospital, while building an additional structure next to it.

Homeowners near the new site registered their objections at a public meeting. A Crittenton official countered by saying that “courts have held repeatedly that the Crittenton home is no nuisance to the community.”

From the prison beat: One man from Dusty, Washington, and another from Palouse, Washington, were in jail in Colfax after a long, complicated journey.

Both men had been charged with family desertion. Authorities found them at a lumber camp on Marble Creek, deep into the rugged St. Joe country in Idaho.

Whitman County authorities escorted them on foot, on horseback, by sled, by train and finally by automobile to the jail in Colfax.