This day in history: Stray dogs the ‘single most aggravating problem’ facing Spokane, councilman said; lumber baron blackmailed by 14-year-old

From 1975: A headline in The Spokesman-Review’s Sunday Magazine asked the question: “How Should We Control Our Exploding Dog Population?”

This issue was newly controversial because the Spokane City Council had just voted to sell its stray dogs to Washington State University for veterinary research.

The story pointed out that the underlying problem was that the city had twice as many dogs as it had five years earlier. City Councilman Jack O’Brien Jr. called it “the single most aggravating problem facing city government today.”

The city’s dog catchers simply couldn’t keep up with the number of dogs running loose.

His solution was the “Trap a Pooch” program, in which homeowners could request a humane trap for their yard. When a dog was caught, the dog would be taken to the dog pound.

This wasn’t exactly a popular idea, either. Other suggestions included spay-neuter clinics and higher fines for owners of dogs running loose. Nobody thought there was an easy solution.

From 1925: J.P. McGoldrick, president of Spokane’s McGoldrick Lumber Co., received a blackmail letter demanding $10,000.

If the cash was not placed on the riverbank next to a certain stick with a rag tied on it, the writer threatened McGoldrick with many “dire” consequences.

McGoldrick thought it was the work of “some boy whose imagination had been fired by some sensational movie,” rather than a vicious blackmail gang. But he wasn’t certain, so he notified police, who staked out the spot on the river.

Sure enough, a 14-year-old boy showed up. Officers swooped down on him.

The boy told police he was the son of poor parents and just wanted some of the “many bright things” that others had. The boy was taken away to juvenile detention.