This day in history: Two women were rescued after being stranded in the woods while picking huckleberries

From 1975: Two women huckleberry pickers from Spokane spent a “cold rainy night in the negligible shelter of a rock overhang” north of Newport, but they were found in good shape the next morning.

The two women, 52 and 82, said they “didn’t really sleep all night … we were listening for a search party.”

Two searchers found them after they “exchanged shouts, which echoed through the mile-long canyon in which the women were waiting.”

The women, with their rescuers, were able to walk out of the canyon, “still clutching their huckleberries.”

From 1925: A special excursion train, called the Silver Grill Special, was scheduled to bring between 3,000 and 4,000 people – including “a troupe of Coast entertainers”– from the Puget Sound area to Spokane.

It was called the Sliver Grill Special because these Seattle-Tacoma revelers were coming for the grand opening of the Silver Grill, in the remodeled Spokane Hotel.

The train would remain in Spokane from Saturday night until Monday evening, which would give the visitors a chance to also attend the opening day of the Spokane Interstate Fair.

The ticket cost for this special excursion? Six dollars.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1814: British forces capture Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812 and destroy many landmarks.

1968: France becomes the world’s fifth thermonuclear power with a detonation at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific.