This day in history: Major fog and a haven for ‘vice and immorality’ made headlines in Spokane

From 1975: Fog closed in on Spokane International Airport, causing flight delays during the busy Christmas Day schedule.

Visibility was “below minimum standards” for part of the day.

Fog also made car travel hazardous at times.

Travel was further complicated by an inch of new snow, which made for a white Christmas in some of the higher sections of the city, “although most populated areas of the city were essentially bare.”

From 1925: An investigation into Spokane’s downtown, east of Wall Street, revealed “unspeakable conditions of vice and immorality,” said George Heaton, a trustee of the Spokane Board of Trade, an anti-vice business group.

Investigators said they were “openly solicited by women of ill repute.”

Liquor was also widely available, in open defiance of Prohibition laws.

“The city is a disgrace to the state,” Heaton said. “… It is looked upon as a haven for the scum of society.”

His group blamed “the evils of lawlessness” largely on the city’s commissioner of public safety, Charles Hedger, and was openly campaigning for Hedger’s recall.

Also on this date

(From onthisday.com)

1223: St. Francis of Assisi assembles the first Nativity scene in Greccio, Italy.

1949: The first television adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” debuts in American syndication. The low budget, 30-minute production stars Taylor Holmes and is narrated by Vincent Price.