This day in history: Soviet newspaper, Pravda, published a rave review of Spokane

From 1975: The Spokesman-Review reprinted a story from Pravda, the Soviet newspaper, in which the Russian correspondent gave his impressions of Spokane after his Expo ’74 visit.

“The people are cordial and unpretentious,” he wrote. “They greet strangers in the street as we do back home and are ready to help at the first beck and call. If you stop to ask directions, you are met with a crowd of volunteer guides. I told one gentleman from Spokane that I rarely came across such responsiveness in Washington DC, and and he remarked disdainfully, ‘Well, that’s the capital!’”

He wrote that the region’s lakes and forests are “almost virgin.”

“The smell of the sun-warmed needles and resin can make your head spin,” he wrote. “The water in the mountain lakes (there are 76 in the area surrounding Spokane) is so clear that the eye can follow schools of trout from a boat.”

From 1925: A Spokane police officer shot Joe Fisher, 19, through both legs as he was fleeing down an alley near Main Avenue.

The officer said he saw Fisher picking up a sack of burglar’s tools and skeleton keys cached in the alley. He ordered Fisher to halt, and when he did not, the officer shot him near the hips.

Fisher told a different story. He said he had just arrived from Chicago, saw a sack in the alley and picked it up, thinking it might be clothes.

His condition was said to be “favorable,” but it would take more time to determine the seriousness of the wounds.

In other news, the Bernard Newman jury was still deliberating after 48 hours, with no verdict on the manslaughter charge.