100 years ago in Spokane: A business leader predicted ‘an era of good times,’ and a group of salesmen took pushiness to new heights

Former Spokane mayor W.J. Hindley delivered an optimistic message to the Spokane Chamber of Commerce’s retail trade bureau.

“We are now at the turning of the tide and on the eve of an era of good times, which should last at least 10 years,” he said. “Lumbering and mining are more active than at any time since the war. The foundries and mills are working full time and double time.”

Hindley predicted that the Spokane region would enjoy “the greatest prosperity experienced in our history” over the next 14 months.

He wasn’t completely off the mark in the short term, but he was far too optimistic about long-term conditions. Within seven years, the Great Depression would arrive.

From the sales beat: A group of door-to-door salesmen selling photo enlargements was ordered to get out of town by Spokane’s head of detectives.

One woman claimed a salesman was so aggressive that he forcibly entered her home, took a photo off the wall and made her sign a contract to enlarge it.

He was “so domineering that Mrs. Jones became hysterical.” When her husband came home, he “found her in bed suffering from the shock of the affair.”

On this day

(From onthisday.com)

1845: A drunken visitor to the British Museum smashes the Portland Vase, which is thought to date to the first century B.C.

1992: The Maastricht Treaty is signed by 12 countries from the European Community to create the European Union.