100 years ago on Halloween: Downtown Spokane was readying for ‘general fun-making,’ but the police chief warned against too much of it

Downtown streets were being decorated for what civic leaders hoped would be Spokane’s biggest downtown Halloween night celebration.

They anticipated that 5,000 people in costume would parade through the streets at 7:30 p.m., followed by a free street dance. After that, there was to be “general fun-making” until midnight.

They hoped the fun-making would not get out of hand, which had happened on other Halloween nights and in other downtown celebrations. One of the goals of the celebration was to give young people something to do other than commit the vandalism and mayhem that had sullied Halloween in previous years.

The police chief had already declared that any rowdyism would not be tolerated.

From the murder beat: Robert Ford, alias Noah Arnold, was spared from the hangman’s rope, at least temporarily.

The Idaho Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal and some legal observers now believed it was “probable that Arnold will never hang.”

Arnold pleaded guilty to shooting a Hope, Idaho, pool hall proprietor. He was taken into custody following a weekslong manhunt through the mountains of North Idaho.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1541: Renaissance artist Michelangelo completes the “Last Judgement” mural in the Sistine Chapel .

1918: Spanish flu kills 21,000 people in the U.S. in a single week.

1982: Pope John Paul II canonizes Canadian Marguerite Bourgeoys, founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal.