100 years ago in Spokane: A coal heaver nearly detonated enough nitroglycerine ‘to demolish city hall’

A disaster of massive proportions was barely averted after a coal shovel at the Owl Fuel Co. in Spokane grazed a hidden hazard: two bottles of nitroglycerine.

Fortunately, the bottles were wrapped with a handkerchief and some rags. Otherwise, the explosion would have “contained force sufficient to demolish city hall.”

Police surmised that the nitroglycerine had been hidden there by safecrackers. Two blasting caps and a fuse were also found hidden in the coal bunker.

“The explosive was removed by the officers with extreme caution, as only a slight jar is required to make the fluid active,” reported The Spokesman-Review. “The nitroglycerine was poured into the river, where it sank to the bottom and clung to the sands before being carried away by the current.”

From the auto beat: The triumph of the auto over the horse and even the streetcar was now nearly complete. The Spokane County auditor reported that 28,077 autos had been licensed in 1923 as of the end of September. This was nearly 4,000 more than had been licensed as of the same date in 1922.

Only 10 years earlier, the auto had still been a novelty for the well-to-do.

From the explorer beat: The SR claimed that Harold Noice, 28, of Seattle, held “the world’s record for continuous time spent beyond the Arctic Circle.” He had spent six and half years in the “frozen north.”

The paper interviewed Noice during his Spokane visit, and noted that his most recent adventure came when he piloted a rescue ship to Wrangell Island. He successfully brought to safety the two survivors of a party that had been marooned there for two years.