This day in history: Walla Walla inmates protested strip search. Judge took pity on man who made beer

From 1975: About 200 inmates staged a protest at the state penitentiary on Walla Walla after a woman visitor was strip-searched.

The prisoners “milled around the prison yard” for over two hours, but eventually returned to their cells without incident. They were angry over the treatment of the woman, who was suspected of carrying drugs into the prison.

Officials said she “agreed to be stripped and searched.” No contraband was found.

Later, however, she refused to allow her handbag to be searched, and she was refused entry to the visitors room.

Officials said the protest “might have developed into something,” but was handled well.

From 1925: S.H. Mead, a 65-year-old Garden Springs farmer, told a sad story in justice court.

“Judge, I lost my wife not long ago,” he said with tears in his eyes. “I was lonesome and wanted a little companionship, so I made some beer and had a few of the boys in to cheer me up.”

He had been arrested for having liquor in his possession after neighbors complained that he was making beer.

“I wasn’t selling any beer, judge,” he said. “I had some of my friends in to have a drink with me. Two men who came there left some money on the table when they started to leave. I told them I didn’t want their money, that I wasn’t bootlegging.”

The judge sentenced Mead to 60 days in jail but evidently had some sympathy for the grey-haired old pioneer. He suspended the sentence and Mead “returned to his lonesome little home.”