This day in history: Architect urged Spokane to do more to protect historic buildings. 2 die when car drives of Pend Oreille River ferry

From 1975: A local group launched a drive to create a Spokane city-county historic preservation commission.

William Trogdon, a local architect, said that Spokane “can’t afford to lose many more” of its historic buildings.

He and a consortium of local architects, real estate developers and civic leaders wanted to make it more profitable to rehabilitate a historic building than tear it down. He believed that Spokane was “way behind” in such efforts.

Four buildings in Spokane – the Review building, the Spokane County Courthouse, the Unitarian Church and the Grace Campbell House – were already listed on the National Historic Register.

Yet there was no local historic preservation apparatus. Trogdon suggested that historic preservation districts should be designated in Browne’s Addition, the Gonzaga University area, along Sumner Avenue, and “perhaps downtown.”

From 1925: Two Sandpoint residents drowned when their automobile plunged off the ferry on the Pend Oreille River.

They were part of a group of six young people who were returning from a day’s picnic on the lake.

The driver of the car was “apparently none too familiar with the machine.” When he drove onto the ferry he “apparently stepped on the gas instead of the brakes, and the machine leaped through the bar at the end of the ferry into the river.”

Four occupants were rescued, but the driver, 30, and a woman passenger, 30, drowned in 35 feet of water.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1846: U.S. Congress passes establishment of the Smithsonian Institution, which grew to the world’s largest museum and research complex.